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A Genetic Study of the Spirit-Phenomena 
in the New Testament 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 

OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT OF NEW TESTAMENT 



BY 

ELMER HARRY ZAUGG 



Private Edition, Distributed By 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIES 

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 

1917 



/ 






* 7 



A Genetic Study of the Spirit-Phenomena 
in the New Testament 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 

OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT OF NEW TESTAMENT 



BY 

ELMER HARRY £AUGG 



Private Edition, Distributed By 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIES 

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 

1917 



-ftf'* 



15 



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GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANV 
MENASHA, WISCONSIN 



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OCT 20 W 



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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction 1 

Chapter I 
Ancient Belief in Spirits and Demons 3 

Chapter II 
Jewish Beliefs in Spirits and Demons 22 

Chapter III 
The Believer as Pneumatikos: The Gifts of the Spirit 41 

Chapter IV 
The Believer as Pneumatikos: Means of Acquiring the Spirit 81 

Chapter V 
The Believer as Pneumatikos: The Benefit of Spirit-Possession 100 

Chapter VI 
Jesus as Pneumatikos 117 

Bibliography 138 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 



INTRODUCTION 

The task which we have set before us is an attempt to interpret the 
New Testament conceptions of spirits and the Spirit in the light of 
the ideas currently held by the people outside Christian circles who 
lived at the time when the New Testament books were written. This 
subject has not yet received an adequate treatment from this viewpoint 
in any separate work, though a number of recent scholars have done much 
in works of a more general nature to give us material out of which a 
genetic study of the spirit-phenomena in the New Testament can be 
made. If any genetic study of the subject has been made at all, it has 
usually confined itself to the establishing of the relations between the 
Jewish and Christian conceptions of the Spirit, while the influence of the 
Hellenistic and Oriental systems of religion and philosophy were entirely 
overlooked. Even such excellent works as Volz's on the Jewish ideas 
of the Spirit, Gunkel's on the ideas of the New Testament writers, and 
Weinel's on the conceptions of the Christians of the sub-apostolic period 
deal very slightly with this aspect of the subject. 1 They confine them- 
selves chiefly to the testimony of the Jewish and Christian writings and 
trace the development of spirit-conceptions within those prescribed 
limits. But the work of such scholars as Reitzenstein, Pfleiderer, 
Dieterich, Rohde, Cumont, Heitmuller, Bousset, et al., altho not dealing 
with this subject in particular, has been the occasion of bringing into the 
foreground the close connection of the New Testament writers not only 
with Jewish thought but with the thought of the Hellenistic world as well. 
It is highly desirable then that a genetic study of the New Testament 
conceptions of spirits and the Spirit, such as would include the whole 
background and thought-world of the New Testament writers, should be 
made. For unless such a study be made, the meaning of the New 
Testament idea of the Spirit as it existed in the minds of the writers 
will never be rightly understood. And it might not be presumptuous 
to say that unless the New Testament conceptions of the Spirit are 
grasped a large part of this literature must remain a sadly misinterpreted, 
if not a closed, book. 

The assumption, of course, upon which we base our method of procedure 
in this investigation is that religion is a matter of social growth and devel- 
opment, not a matter of static quantities of doctrines and practices divine- 

1 See bibliography at end of volume for the names of these works. 



Z A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

ly revealed to man once for all. And if man, as we believe, was one, if not 
the, determining factor in this religious process and growth, then the most 
natural way to deal with such a subject as the spirit-phenomena of the 
New Testament — and we might well say the same with regard to the 
study of any other New Testament conception — is, so far as we can, to 
deal with the process of the development of spirit-ideas from a sociological 
and psychological viewpoint and to point out their genetic relations with 
the ideas of contemporary systems of thought. 

Our first endeavor then is to find out how the belief in spirits and 
demons arose in the primitive ages and how these primitive ideas were mod- 
ified and developed in the thinking of the Graeco-Roman world. But 
since Christianity arose on Jewish soil and at first was very little more 
than a Jewish sect, it is necessary also to investigate the conceptions of 
the Jews regarding spirits and demons, and particularly those of the Jews 
of New Testament times. This gives us a background for the Christian 
notions of the Spirit in the first few decades of the movement. But 
when by the activity of Paul and other missionaries the movement 
spread to Gentile soil, there naturally came a fusion of the Jewish ideas 
heretofore held by the Christians and those which the Gentile Christians 
brought over with them as a heritage from their past history. This 
leads us to a discussion of the spirit-conceptions in which there is more 
or less of a Hellenistic element, particularly the conceptions of the 
Pauline letters and the fourth Gospel. In this discussion we are to 
concern ourselves not only with the operations of the Spirit in the 
believer, but with the ideas of the Spirit's relation to Jesus, for these 
ideas, based on the identification which the Christians made of Jesus 
with the heavenly being or Logos of Hellenistic thought, and conditioned 
largely by the Christians' own experiences of the Spirit, evince the 
fusion of various elements and can be only properly grasped when these 
elements have been resolved into their constituent parts. 

The author wishes to make grateful acknowledgment of the help re- 
ceived in the preparation of this thesis from the professors of the New 
Testament Department of the University of Chicago, and particularly 
from Professor S. J. Case under whose direction and with the aid of 
whose kind advice and suggestions the dissertation was written. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 



CHAPTER I 

Ancient Belief in Spirits and Demons 
The world of antiquity according to the conceptions of the people 
then living was peopled by all kinds of spiritual beings and powers. The 
earth upon which they stood and walked, the objects, whether animate 
or inanimate, which went to make up their environment, the air which 
they breathed, the heavens with their luminaries and starry hosts, were 
all believed to be full of spirits. These spirits, ordinarily invisible, 
yet made their presence and reality manifest through the exercise of 
some inexplicable power, or through the expression of a unique mode 
of activity in the objects which they were thought to inhabit. Seed 
was sown in the soil, and some mysterious power in the earth caused 
it to sprout and grow and bear fruit. 1 Plants and trees must have some 
soul or spirit in them for they give signs of life and continue to do so 
until, injured or cut down, they wither and die. 2 A large massive 
rock or mountain creates a sense of awe in the breast of the savage 
on-looker, and this sensation can have no other explanation than that 
it arises from the influence of the spirit of the rock or mountain upon 
his soul. In truth, the majestic Olympus was the very abode of the 
great gods. 

The action of water as noticed in the bubbling spring or in the restless 
waves of the ocean or in the rushing flow of the mountain torrent, also 

1 The ancient worship of Gaia (r^ ttcivtoov ixrjTrjp) was no doubt based on the belief 
that the productive forces of nature were due to the agency of spiritual powers resident 
in the earth. With the early Thracians Dionysos represented the power of life in 
vegetation. See Case, Evolution of Early Christianity, ch. 9, but especially p. 298; 
also Tylor, Primitive Culture, II, pp. 206 ff and 273. In fact, ancient Greek religion 
consisted very largely of the worship of the forces of nature. In their spring festivals 
the main idea and object of the worshippers was the placation of the spirits or ghosts 
of the dead underworld, which they held responsible for the death of vegetable life 
during winter, and which, they thought, would promote fertility if appeased by sacri- 
fice (Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 53 f.). 

2 Notice the mention of tree-nymphs in Homer, Aphrod. 257. And Ovid is 
doubtless not only reflecting the conceptions of his own age, but those of the ages 
preceding, when he speaks of dryads, fauns, and satyrs living in the groves and forests 
(Metam. VIII, 741). See also Cato, De Re Rustica, 139, and Pliny, XVII, 47. The 
spirit-inspired oak at Dodona (Homer, Odyss. XIV, 327 and XIX, 296) is, of course, 
an example merely of the belief in the special inspiration of a particular tree, and yet 

i t represents the general conception which the ancients held as to spirits dwelling 
n trees and groves. 



4 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

demands some mysterious indwelling spirit to account for its activity. 
Nymphs made their home in the spring; Xanthos or Acheloos ruled in 
the waters of the river; and Poseidon or some terrible monster of the 
deep dwelt in the waves of the sea. How else could a shipwreck or 
loss of life by drowning be explained except by assuming that the angry 
demon of the deep drew his victim beneath the water? 3 

Fire also was regarded as an element possessed of demonic power. 
In Greece Hestia was the goddess of the hearth; and in Rome Vesta 
was worshipped in a temple where fire was kept continually burning, 
the goddess supposedly dwelling in the fire. The gods, Vulcan and 
Hephaistos, were connected with subterranean volcanic fire. 

Again the various activities of the air were supposed to have been 
caused by the agency of spiritual beings. The Harpies were spirits of 
the wind, 4 and they somehow were connected with the giving of life 
not only to men but to animals and plants as well. 5 Rain and snow, 
thunder and lightning, hail and storm, clouds and rainbow were all 
ascribed to the activity of demonic powers that ruled and governed the 
regions of the air. 

And so it was with the movements of the heavenly bodies. The 
sun, moon and stars were alive and animated by their special deities. 
The worship of the Greek Apollo, the Egyptian Osiris, the Persian 
Mithras, and the Syrian Elagabalus, all of them Sun-gods, indicates how 
widespread was the idea of a spirit or god dwelling in the sun and guiding 
it in its daily course. And the primitive conception of the moon and 
stars was quite similar. 6 

No one who studies the religious conceptions of primitive peoples 
or of the races of the lower culture can fail to be impressed with the fact 

3 Victims were regularly sacrificed to the sea until a late period in order to pla- 
cate the power or powers supposed to dwell therein. Cicero says, "If Earth is a god- 
dess, so also the Sea, whom thou saidst to be Neptune" (De Nat. Deo., Ill, 20). 

4 Homer, H. XXIII, 192; Odyss. XX, 37 and 66. Also Vergil, Aen. I, 56. 

6 The Athenians sacrificed to the Tritopatores, i. e. to the ghosts of ancestors or 
the spirits of the winds, when they were about to marry (Suidas, s. v. Tritopatores). 
Hippocrates (Geoponica, IX, 3) says the winds give life not only to plants but to 
all things. And Vergil has a passage where the pregnancy of mares is ascribed to 
the agency of winds (Georg. Ill, 274). See also on this point Harrison, op cit., pp. 
178 ff. 

6 Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, pp. 129 ff.; Astrology and 
Religion among Greeks and Romans, p. 116. Murray (Four Stages of Greek religion 
p. 126 ff.) discusses the worship of the seven planets in later antiquity as described 
in the Hermetic, the Gnostic, and other ancient religious writings, a custom 
that had its origin no doubt in quite early stages in the religious development of man. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 5 

that they thought of themselves as being surrounded by a vast cloud of 
witnesses, spiritual beings that were responsible for all the various 
activities and forces of nature. 7 It was very much as Thales is reported 
to have said, "All things are full of gods." 8 

The question arises here as to where the primitive races derived 
their belief in spirits. What was it that led them to give such an inter- 
pretation — for in the last analysis the belief in spirits is nothing more 
than an effort to explain causality in the world — to the natural pheno- 
mena of the universe? In answering this question we are thrown back 
upon another one which deals with primitive man's conception of him- 
self. The law of psychology, which may well be termed universal, that 
a man always interprets phenomena external to himself from a subjective 
standpoint and in the light of his own experience, must have played a 
fundamental part in the forming of primitive conceptions regarding the 
outer world and the active forces of nature. What man thought of 
himself, what he experienced in his contact with the forces of his environ- 
ment, was the element that determined the direction and nature of the 
explanation which he gave regarding the external conditions, events, 
and vicissitudes of his life. If he thought of the earth, the air, the stars, 
as embodiments or possessors of spiritual beings, it was because he first 
thought of himself as having a spiritual being within him. So a fun- 
damental inquiry to the understanding of the rise of the belief in spirits 
in external nature is to find out how man came to believe that he had a 
soul or spirit within himself. 

The belief in souls arose no doubt from man's experience with such 
states as sleep, dreams, death and sickness. He noticed that at certain 
times his body or that of some other man was active and awake; at 
other times it lay dormant and in a state of comparative lifelessness. 
It was but natural that he, a savage, should ascribe the change thus 
undergone in sleep to the departure of some entity from the body. 
Again in the depths of night he had dreams in which he saw the form 
of some distant friend or enemy, or in which he was conscious of himself 
travelling or wandering in strange and remote places. He knew that 

7 An abundant mass of material illustrating not only the ideas of the ancient 
Greeks and Romans with regard to the belief in spirits dwelling and acting in nature, 
but ideas quite similar to the above as held also by the people of the lower culture in 
other lands of both ancient and modern times, may be found in such works as Frazer, 
The Golden Bough, 1913-5; Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, 
1906; Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, 1896-1909; Tylor, Primitive Culture, 1891; 
et al. See extended bibliography in Case, Ev. of Ear. Xty, p. 76 f. 

8 Arist. De Anima, I, 5, 411 A. 



6 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

his friend or enemy could not possibly have been present in bodily form. 
And upon waking suddenly from a dream he no doubt realized that his 
own body was just where it had been before he had fallen asleep. He 
concluded therefore that the form which he had seen was the phantom, 
the Shattenseele, of his friend or enemy, and that he himself was pos- 
sessed of a sort of second self, or soul, an entity quite distinct from his 
physical organism and able to leave it at wall. 

It was in a similar way that primitive man interpreted the phen- 
omenon of death. When he saw his comrade's or his enemy's dead 
body, he supposed that the being that had animated it had now deserted 
it. The departure of the soul, which in sleep was merely temporary, 
in death was regarded as permanent. Since death in its bodily mani- 
festations functioned in practically the same way as sleep, it was simply 
conceived of as a prolonged sleep. The analogy of the two phenomena 
has so impressed itself upon the human mind that even today the two 
words are often used synonymously, with however this difference in 
usage that, whereas death is today often taken to mean the absence of 
life as an abstract element or principle, in the mind of primitive man 
it always connoted the departure of a being whose presence in the body 
gave it life and animation. This being was thought of as residing 
particularly in the blood or in the breath, for death was seen to take 
place upon the loss of the one or at the cessation of the other. 

Sickness was also conceived of as being due to the agency of spirits 
or demons. The savage saw his body or the bodies of his comrades 
waste away; 9 he was a witness of the convulsions, the distortions, the 
ferocity, and the incoherent raving of the insane and epileptic. He 
himself perhaps knew what it was to suffer from fever or some mental 
disorder, and had a knowledge of how the delirious and frenzied acted. 
He recognized that all these phenomena were abnormal and strange ; and 
hence, just as he ascribed the normal conditions and acts to the soul 
which ordinarily inhabited the body, he now was led to explain these 
abnormal conditions on the ground of a strange spirit that had taken 
possession of the body. 10 

This is doubtless the way in which primitive man came to believe 
in souls or spirits. Other elements and factors may have had a share 

9 The vampire was regarded as a spirit, either the soul of a living or dead person, 
which sucked the blood out of its victims (Tylor, Prim. Cult., II, 189). 

10 Homer thinks of sick men as being tormented by demons, Odyss. V, 396; X, 64. 
And the idea that lay back of the belief in the Keres was that these spiritual beings 
were the cause for all the ills and diseases of this mortal life, Hesiod., Erg. 90. Even 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 7 

in the process, such as, for example, the hearing of his voice in echo, 
the sight of his form as reflected in water, the presence of his shadow, 
the appearance of distant persons and objects when under the influence 
of a trance or vision, and the mental excitement of some great emotion. 
But these were perhaps no more than added proofs lending confirmation 
to his belief that he was possessed of a soul or spirit, and that in addition 
to this soul or Korperseele, which was the normal cause of his life, he 
had a double or second self, a phantom, a Hauch- or Schattenseele. 
Both of these entities were supposed to be able to leave the body, but 
the latter's sphere of activity seems to have been limited to dream- 
and vision-appearances only. 11 

Now it is a feature common to the psychology of all primitive races 
that no distinction is made between the subjective and objective, between 
the imagined and the real. The man of the lower culture believes that 
the human specters which he sees whether in dreams, delirium and 
mental excitement, or merely in the exercise of his visual memory or 
imagination, are objectively real. And hence, since he, arguing from 
his own experience and from his conception of himself, is convinced 
that other men and animate objects have souls and phantoms too, he 
peoples the world about him with spirits and ghosts. Furthermore 
since he sees the phantoms of his dead friends and enemies in his dreams 
and visions, he infers that the ghosts or souls of the dead are still alive 
and are able to wander back to the earth from the abode of the dead. 12 
This belief of course added a multitude of spiritual beings to the milieu 
of the savage, already so full of spirits. 

blindness was caused in this way, Eur. Phoen. 950. For further discussion of the 
Keres see Harrison, Proleg. to Study of Gr. Relig., ch. 5. They were germs or bacilli 
conceived of as disease-spirits. On this subject consult also Wundt, Elemente der 
Volkerpsychologie, p. 83, and Thompson, Devils, II, Tablet XI, line 1 ff., and II, 
Tablet M, line 1 ff. 

11 For further material on the subject of the rise of the belief in souls or spirits, 
see Tylor, Prim. Cult., I, 423 ff.; Wundt, Elemente der Volkerpsychologie, pp. 203 ff.; 
Toy, Introduction to the History of Religions, sees. 39-44; and Leuba, the Psycholog- 
ical Origin and the Nature of Religion, ch. 3. For passages illustrative of the belief 
in dream-souls, see Homer, II. XXIII, 59; Odyss. XI, 207, 222; Porphyr. De Antro 
Nympharum; Vergil, Aen. II, 794; and Ovid, Fasti, V, 475. These references no 
doubt reflect ideas much older than the time of their writers. 

12 This belief in the return of spirits from the dead coupled with the thought that 
their placation was necessary to ward off their harmful influence, was doubtless the 
occasion for the rise of the cults of the dead which prevailed so widely in ancient 
times, and have continued in some lands even to the present day, particularly in 
Oriental countries. It was quite generally believed that if a ghost became hungry, or 



8 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

The evidence given by those who have studied primitive religions 
seems sufficient to establish this as the way in which the belief in the 
existence of spirits in external nature arose. As men's lives and actions 
under normal circumstances were regarded as having been caused by 
souls or spirits, either dwelling within or acting upon the human body, 
so the cause for the various physical operations of the outer world was 
traced to the same kind of soullike beings residing in or acting upon 
the objects of nature. 13 

The next step in the development of spirit-ideas was no doubt the 
classification of spiritual beings into groups according to the analogy 
of the classes in human society. The hero was one who had distinguished 
himself in his earthly life because of some deed of prowess or some 
signal act of service to his family, clan, or state. It was but natural 
that since he had thus manifested his superiority over his fellow mortals 
in this life, his ghost should be regarded as existing on a higher plane 
than the ordinary in the abode of the dead. The same human analo- 
gies played a part in the origin of primitive ideas regarding demons 
and gods. The chief ruled over his tribe or clan; he had sons and daugh- 
ters of his own; he was surrounded by his counsellors; his messengers 
made known his will, and his soldiers fought his enemies. These human 
relations were conceived of as continuing in the world of spirits, and 
thus the idea of a god ruling over subordinate spirits or demons ori- 
ginated. 14 In this way also were the beings of the invisible world, 
as it were, classified and graded. 15 But of course there was no fast 

if the body in which it had dwelt was not properly buried, or if due rites and sacri- 
fices were not made in its honor, it would return to earth to afflict the living. The 
Greek festival, Anthesteria, was devoted to this Manesworship, or Manism, as Wundt 
calls it. And Ovid (Fasti, V, 443) mentions a rite belonging to the Roman Lemuria 
festival in which the father of a family had to drive away the ancestral ghosts. li Shade 
of my fathers, depart," he repeated nine times as a part of the ritual. Harrison, 
op. cit. ch. 2. 

13 The idea of spirits acting as personified causes in even inanimate objects is 
illustrated by a custom described by Herodotus (I, 189; VII, 34) who says that a 
court of justice was held at Prytaneum to judge any inanimate or irrational object, 
such as an ox or a piece of stone, which had without any known human agency caused 
the death of anyone. If found guilty, the object was cast outside the border. This 
custom is also referred to in Porpyhry, De Abstinentia, II, 30, and Pausan. I. 28. 

14 Men have always interpreted the Deity and the relations that exist between 
the inhabitants of the spiritual world in accordance with the relations existing between 
the members of the society in which they happen to live. In a monarchy God is a 
king; in a democracy, a father and fellow-companion. 

15 So far as the literary remains of human history inform us, Hesiod was doubt- 
less the first to sketch this classification of spiritual beings. He mentions the four 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 9 

line of demarcation between these various classes of spiritual beings. 16 
Nor was it impossible for members of one class to rise or fall to a position 
higher or lower than his own rank. The ghost of a hero could rise to 
the rank of a god. 17 The demons were very desirous of being regarded 
as deities and sought deification; 18 and in case a demon became so well 
known as to receive a name he was classed as a god. 19 And among the 
gods themselves there was often a shift of position and rank. 20 On 
the other hand, evil spirits were sometimes thought of as heavenly 
beings who had fallen from their high estate. 21 

As for the constitution and form of a spiritual being, the primitive 
conception of a ghost-soul was that it possessed the likeness of human 
form and was in its constituency of a very fine substance, something 
like air, wind, or fire. Primitive man also ascribed to many of the 
demons, and to the gods in general, human shape and passions, as well 
as the quality of ethereality or vaporous materiality. The Homeric 

classes: gods, demons, heroes, and the souls of men. He evidently ranks demons 
higher than heroes, and identifies them with the souls of those who lived in the Golden 
Age of the past (Erg. 109, 122 ff., 159, 172, 251 ff.). For a discussion of the points of 
differentiation made by primitive peoples between gods, demons, and heroes, see 
Wundt, op. cit. pp. 348-369. He contends for the priority of the belief in magic and 
spirits to that in gods, and cites instances of tribes living today who have not yet 
arrived at the stage where gods form a part of their thought-world, though they have a 
belief in supersensuous beings. He claims that a god was distinguished from a demon 
or hero in three ways: (a) his place of abode was not the same; (b) his life was per- 
fect and immortal, and wasiiot subject to sickness nor death; and (c) his personality, 
though anthropomorphically conceived of, was yet superhuman. Demons and 
heroes might have one or the other of these characteristics, but not all three combined. 

16 See Rohde, Psyche, I, 96 ff. and 255 for statements regarding souls that become 
demons and gods; also in the same work s. v. Damonen and Seelen. Josephus 
reflects this primitive idea in Wars VI, 1, 5 (47). 

17 Such was the case with Hercules and Asklepios, Harrison (Prolegomena, p. 341) 
to the contrary. 

18 Plutarch, though a late writer, is no doubt in accord with primitive concep- 
tions when he says that demons, though not gods, desire to be called gods and to be 
honored as such (Why the Oracles Cease, 20). Porphyry too tells how the demons 
who wish to be gods long for the fumes of sacrifice by which their spiritual and bodily 
substance is nourished, for the odor of blood and flesh is regarded as giving them 
strength (De Abstinentia, II, 42). 

19 See Foucart, Encyc. of Rel. and Eth., art., "Demons and Spirits (Egyptian)." 

20 When the mystery-cults became flourishing, Demeter rose from the position 
of an earth-goddess to that of an Olympian. And the same might be said of Dionysos 
(Harrison, op. cit., p. 275; Eurip., Bacch., 416). 

21 This is the conception particularly of the authors of Job and Ethiopic Enoch. 
See Barton, Encyc. of Rel. and Eth., art., "Demons and Spirits (Hebrew)." 



10 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

gods and the Angel of Jehovah are examples of the anthropomorphic 
ideas of the ancient Greeks and Hebrews. The spirits which were 
supposed to reside in objects of nature were of course not thought of as 
having human shape, but nevertheless they were generally regarded as 
personal beings possessing the powers of intelligence and will. It is 
not until man reaches the stages of the higher culture and of philosophical 
speculation that he arrives at the idea of life, causality and spirit as 
abstractions. 

Now becuse the spirits and deities were thus anthropomorphically 
and personally apprehended, they were also thought of as living in close 
intercourse with mortal men. The souls of the dead supposedly hovered 
about the tomb or place of burial, or were wont to return from the 
underworld to seek embodiment, 22 to wreak vengeance upon some 
previous enemy, or to appear to some friend or relative. Through the 
festivals for the dead the association which the living enjoyed with the 
dead before their departure from the earth was supposedly continued; 
yet the souls of the dead were in the main regarded with terror by most 
of the peoples of antiquity, and sacrifices were quite universally offered 
to placate them. The dead were regarded as revealing the future through 
dreams and visions, and the conception also prevailed that a man's 
soul might in a dream or vision penetrate the underworld and thus gain 
a knowledge of its secrets. 23 The spirits of heroes too were thought of as 
being in close touch with the living. They were still active in rendering 
service to those whom they had aided while alive or those who afterwards 
became their worshippers. They were accustomed to appear to men 
particularly at springs and wells, which were sacred to them. Asklepios 
continued to heal by incubation those who came to his temple. 24 

The demons also were in constant communication with the living. 
They flitted about in the air and were continually striving to get pos- 
session of some human body, or to inhabit some object of nature. In 
general, we might say that there were two kinds of demons which were 
supposed to take up their abode in men, viz., disease-spirits and oracle- 

22 This idea formed the basis for the belief in the transmigration of the soul, so 
prevalent in the religions of India and referred to so often in the works of Plato and 
other Greek writers. See Diog. Laert., Empedocles, 12, where the claim of Pythago- 
ras is made that he was the soul of Euphorbos, whom Menelaus slew at the seige of 
Troy, in a new body. 

23 Homer (Odyss. XI) describes the visit of Odysseus to the regions of the dead. 
Later references to visions of the future world are found in Lucian, Philopseudes, 
17-28; Plut., De Sera Numinis Vindicta, XXII; and Euseb., Praep. Evang. 11, 36. 

24 Harrison, Proleg., pp. 341 ff. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 1 1 

spirits. The former caused all the mental disorders and diseases of 
life, and were to be exorcised. The latter caused dreams, visions, 
and ecstasy, and were to be longed for. The former could be kept off 
by the performance of ritual, the eating of certain strong herbs like 
buckthorn, the sounding of brass, and the making of comic figures. 
Care had to be taken particularly when food was eaten, for the demons 
were apt to enter the body with the food, and especially when meat 
was taken, because they were fond of it and were thought to be more 
closely connected with a thing that once had had life and blood in it. 
The oracle-spirits were induced to enter the body by means of fasting, 
by the eating of laurel, by drinking wine, by partaking of certain drugs, 
by the playing of musical instruments, etc. 

The gods too were not conceived of as living at any remote distance 
from mankind. 26 And so long as the deities were regarded as living 
in close association with men, possession by a god meant practically 
the same thing as possession by a demon; in practice at least the two 
phenomena can scarcely be differentiated. The Delphian prophetess 
chewed laurel leaves, 26 fasted, and inhaled the gases that issued from 
the orifice in the ground, and thus became possessed of Apollo and 
prophesied. 27 The worshipper of Dionysos used ivy, drank wine, and 
ate the raw flesh of the sacred bull. In this way he became inspired 
by the god. The result was a frenzy and an ecstasy that no doubt, 
finds a close parallel in the mad ravings of the early Hebrew prophets. 28 

It was in this way that the savage and barbarian held intercourse 
with the invisible beings of the spiritual world. 

But we should not fail to notice here also the prominent part which 
the idea of mana, or spiritual force, played in the intercourse between 
spirits and men. Codrington 29 defines mana thus: "It is a power or 
influence, not physical, and in a way supernatural; but it shows itself 
in physical force, or in any kind of power or excellence which a man 

25 "The idea of a god far away in the sky is not easy for primitive man to grasp. 
It is a subtle and rarefied idea, saturated with ages of philosophy and speculation" 
(Murray, Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. 23). 

26 Sophocles, frag. 811. 

27 Chrysostom, Horn. XXIX, I Cor. 12:2, reflects no doubt the Christian version 
of a primitive belief when he says that an evil spirit comes from beneath the Pythoness 
as she sits on her tripod, enters her body, and fills her with madness. 

28 1 Sam. 19:18-24. 

29 Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 119 n. For further information on the sub- 
ject of mana see Marett, Encyc. of Rel. and Eth., art., "Mana," and the bibliography 
there given. 



12 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT -PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

possesses. This tnana is not fixed in anything, and can be conveyed in 
almost anything; but spirits, whether disembodied souls or supernatural 
beings, have it and can impart it; and it essentially belongs to personal 
beings to originate it, though it may act through the medium of water, 
or a stone, or a bone." This idea of tnana, which was originally no 
doubt a term used only by the Pacific tribes, is practically to be identified 
with a similar conception held as well by most savage races outside of 
the Pacific group, for example, the orenda idea of the Iroquois, the 
wakan of the Sioux, the manitu of the Algonquins, the hasina of the 
Madagascar tribes, etc.; and hence may be regarded as a universal 
feature of primitive belief . It was used to explain the forces that operate 
in extraordinary ways, the striking shape of certain natural objects, 
or the abnormal character and power of certain individuals. In other 
words, it represents the power, might, or influence of the being or object 
inhabited by a spirit. In a sense every man has mana, but the amount 
which different individuals possess varies according to the power which 
they can wield over other individuals. The medicine-man, the physi- 
cian, the seer, the king, the priest, all had more mana than ordinary 
men; and that explained their superhuman power. Furthermore mana 
was unmoral, and could be used for either good or ill. It was therefore 
thought advisable for an individual either to acquire enough of this 
power to surpass that of the objects or persons he feared, or to win 
the goodwill of the being who had it also. 

The way in which this mana could be acquired was by coming in 
contact with a person or object that possessed it to an extraordinary 
degree. This contact could be effected in various ways: by looking 
upon, or touching the person or object; by spitting on or speaking to 
it; by using its hair, skin, or faeces; by pronouncing its name; by the 
possession of its image, or some object that once belonged to it; by 
the giving of presents, or the payment of money; or by simply eating 
the object. 30 The possession of a tiger's whiskers was believed to give 
a man possession of his mana. Achilles was fed on wild beasts' flesh, 
with the thought that by doing this he would acquire their power. 
The native Australians are said to eat the kidney-fat of a slain enemy 
in order thus to add his strength to their own. It was also believed that 
the performance of certain magical rites and initiatory ceremonies, the 
visitation of a trance or dream, the forcible injection of magic crystals 
or shell into the body would add to one's stock of power. Mana could 
also be transmitted by inheritance; and this idea no doubt formed the 
30 Halliday, Greek Divination, ch. 2, deals with this subject in greater detail. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT -PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 13 

basis for the rise of prophetic guilds and of the notion of the lineal suc- 
cession of kings. In Greek history we read of the mantis effecting 
union with his god by eating laurel, by drinking divine water or the 
blood of the sacred bull, or by allowing a snake to bite him. Taboos 
arose chiefly because it was felt that ritual purity was necessary before 
a man could with impunity approach a person or object possessing this 
awe-inspiring and sacred power. If one wished to avert the evil influence 
and activity of mana, he had either to overcome the person or object 
possessing it by the exercise of his own mana, or to enlist the aid of some 
other mana-possessed person, or object. This explains the prevalence 
of sorcerers, magicians, charms and amulets among primitive peoples. 
But as man was often unsuccessful in overcoming his ills and enemies 
in this way, he resorted to the restrictions and prohibitions of the taboo- 
system in order that this at times malevolent power might remain 
quiescent and not come out into the open to do him hurt. 

Thus we see that primitive man believed himself to be surrounded 
by a host of spiritual beings and forces, which could take possession 
of, or act upon, not only inanimate objects, but his own body as well. 
When thus possessed or acted upon, he usually thought of himself as 
being actuated or moved by a will or force not his own, his body becoming 
for the time being a mere instrument of the spirit. The possibility 
of a spiritual being, which was conceived of as being constituted of 
very fine substance, entering and penetrating another material being 
never disturbed his mind, for he believed in the penetrability of matter. 
It was in this way that he explained both the normal and the abnormal 
conditions of his body and mind. Furthermore, he was convinced that 
his power, whether physical or mental, could be increased to superhuman 
proportions by his coming into contact with a being which had super- 
human power. This contact was effected either by his soul leaving his 
body and entering the world of spirits, or by a spirit taking possession 
of his body. It was for this reason that he employed various means and 
agencies to induce dreams, visions and ecstatic conditions; it was in 
this way that he could get the strength and power of the spirits. 

Now when we come to New Testament times, or to what is known as 
the Graeco-Roman period of history, we find that in general these prim- 
itive ideas concerning spirits and demons persisted, though some of 
their crudities, to be sure, had disappeared. But we notice that along 
certain lines there was more or less of change and progress, due no doubt 
to a variety of causes, among which we might mention the spread of 
Greek culture as a result chiefly of Alexander's conquests, the introduc- 



14 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

tion into the West of various Oriental cults and ideas, the rise and con- 
solidation of the Roman Empire, the spirit of cosmopolitanism and 
individualism that arose largely as a result of the political conditions 
of the times, and the unwonted activity and interest of philosophers 
and learned men in the practical affairs of life. 

Among the changes that took place in the beliefs of the people regard- 
ing spirits and demons, we might point first of all to the tendency toward 
a monotheistic conception of Deity. This tendency manifested itself, 
it is true, even before the Graeco-Roman period, but it came to a climax, 
as it were, during this time. Among the later Hebrews, who were greatly 
influenced by the religious ideas of the Persians, monotheism developed 
from the time of the exile. 31 And as Ahura Mazda in Persia, Ptah in 
Egypt, 32 and Jehovah among the Jews became the one supreme Deity, 
so in Greece and Rome Zeus and Jupiter became the aU-controlling 
Ruler of the universe. There were no doubt various causes and elements 
that played a part in this development, but perhaps the chief one was 
the introduction into the Graeco-Roman world of Oriental thought, 
which in the main was characterized by a monotheistic view of the 
world. Nevertheless the tendency to model the heavenly pantheon 
according to the pattern of social and political institutions, which in 
this period were predominantly of a monarchical type, as the Imperial 
regime in Rome shows; the effort of the philosophers to find in all the 
universe a first cause, and to reduce the many to the one; the ascription 
of all the various phenomena in the universe to the different activities 
of one and the same spiritual agency; the tendency to think of the world 
as being animated by one all-pervasive spirit as the body was animated 
by one soul or spirit; all these too must have had an influence in fusing 
into one common personality all the attributes of the great polytheistic 
powers. 33 The result of this monotheistic development was on the one 
hand to ascribe a large number of names to the Supreme Deity, 34 but 
it also tended to increase the host of demons and other spiritual beings 
of subordinate rank, for many of those beings formerly regarded as 

31 This is especially to be noted in Deutero-Isaiah and the later prophets. 

32 The London Inscriptions (especially Z59) given by Reitzenstein in Poimandres 
p. 62 ff., show the tendency toward monotheism in Egypt. 

33 References to the monotheistic views of the time may be found in Wessely, 
Paris Magical Papyrus, V, 2838; Aeschylus, frag. 70 n; Cicero, Acad., II, 118; Seneca, 
Nat. Ques., I, pref. 13; Lactantius, V, 238 (Rzach); Sibylline Oracles, V. 11 f.: Marcus 
Aurelius, IV, 23; Reitzenstein, Poimandres, 39, 1; and Xorden, Agnostos Theos, pp. 
240-250. 

34 Ahura Mazda possesses 72 names. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 15 

gods no longer were thought of as occupying a first place in the pantheon, 
but as ranking with the demons. The contact of one cult with another 
generally resulted in the devotees of the one calling the gods of the other 
demons or evil spirits, 35 though the fusion of various cults, which was 
one of the noteworthy features of the syncretistic movement of the age, 
tended on the other hand to reduce their number by identifying the 
gods and demons of the various systems. This tendency manifested 
itself even among the Jewish people, as is evident from the statement 
of Philo, in which he says that souls, demons, and angels differ only in 
name but are in reality one. 36 

The Graeco-Roman period was also a time when the grandeur and 
the stability of the Roman State was impressing itself upon the minds of 
the people. And especially after the establishment of the Empire did 
they come to respect and honor the Emperor who stood, as it were, as 
the living representative or embodiment of the Roman power, and who 
in a sense was given credit for the benefactions and services which the 
Roman State was rendering the world. As a result of this the worship 
of heroes was greatly stimulated and Emperor-worship was soon estab- 
lished as a state-cult, and became particularly active in the eastern pro- 
vinces where the king from early ages had been regarded as of divine 
descent. 

Another change that took place about this time was the develop- 
ment of transcendental ideas. Where formerly most of the gods and 
spirits were chthonian beings, or at least associated with men on the 
earth, the abode of the deities, and in some cases even of the spirits of 
the dead, was now transferred from the earth and underworld to the 
skies. This was no doubt largely due to the influence of Oriental astrol- 
ogy, which so strongly affected the West at this time. 37 A great gulf 
came gradually to be fixed between the earth and heaven, between man 
and his gods. And hence the need came to be felt for some being, 
some mediating agent that could span this gulf and effect the 
reunion of man and Deity. This union could not be achieved, it was 
believed, unless some being with a knowledge of divine and heavenly 
things would come down from heaven and give men a knowledge of a 
safe way to heaven or to the sun, moon and stars which by very many 

35 Many of the angels, saints and demons of Christian belief were deities in poly- 
theistic systems. 

38 De Gigantibus, IV. 

37 Cumont in his two works cited above has done much to point out the influence 
of Oriental astrology in the Graeco-Roman civilization. 



16 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

came to be regarded as the future abode of the soul, 38 or unless, accom- 
panied by some demon, angel, or spirit, the soul could ascend to heaven. 39 
The belief in guardian angels and demons became so prominent in this 
period no doubt in part at least because there was a real need felt for an 
external power not only to guide the soul aright in this life but to accom- 
pany it in its upward flight after death. 

But another influence came into the Graeco-Roman world along 
with Oriental culture, which placed the emphasis upon a direct union 
with the Deity. This was Oriental mysticism, and was represented 
for the most part by the so-called mystery-religions. 40 It was no doubt 
the individualistic tendencies of the period that called forth these relig- 
ions and enabled them to gain such influence and currency among the 
people. Men began to feel that they sustained a relation to the unseen 
powers as individuals, not merely as members of a family, tribe, or 
community. What they wanted was not so much political freedom as 
personal salvation. In the presence of the gods and demons, and op- 
pressed by the new demands that were being made upon their lives as 
individuals in a great Empire, a sense of unworthiness, of utter failure, 
of impurity took possession of the hearts of many, and both the religions 
and philosophies of the time give evidence of efforts that were made to 
minister to the needs of such people. Orphism, to cite one example, 
was chiefly concerned with the problem of satisfying the peoples' yearning 
after purity and after the power to overcome the evil forces that sur- 
rounded them. And this was effected, so it was promised, by the 
worshipper becoming united with the Deity. In fact it was a common 
doctrine of all the mysteries that by the performance of certain purifi- 

38 The Pythagoreans and the later Platonists in particular believed that the stars 
and moon were the dwelling place of purified spirits (Rohde, Psyche, II, p. 443 n.4). 
"We become as stars when anyone dies" (Arist., Pac, 831). 

39 Porphyry (Stobaeus, Eclogues, II, 171) speaks of the soul going through the 
seven spheres, the moon being the gateway for its descent, the sun for its ascent. 
The so-called Mithrasliturgy of Dieterich is perhaps no more than a magical formula 
by which the soul could be safely guided to the highest heavens (Cumont, Revue de 
l'instruction publique en Belgique, XL VII, p. 1-10). On the notion of the soul's 
ascent to heaven see Wendland, Die hellenistisch-romischer Kultur, esp. pp. 170-176). 

40 These religions, with the exception of the Eleusinian which seems to have been 
indigenous to Greece, and the Orphic which had perhaps a Thracian origin, entered 
the Greek and Roman worlds from the sixth century B. C. onward. The worship 
of the Phrygian Cybele entered Greece as early as the sixth century B. C. and was 
granted official sanction in Italy in 204 B. C. Mithraism doubtless came later, but 
must have been strong in Asia Minor as early as the first century A. D. For a de- 
scription of these mystery-religions see Case, Ev. of Early Xty, ch. 9 where extended 
bibliographies on the subject are also given. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 17 

catory rites, by the enactment of a sacred drama, by the sight of certain 
representations of the god, and by partaking of a certain kind of food 
in which the power of the god was thought to reside, the devotee could 
come into direct union with the Deity, indeed, could himself become 
divine. In this way it was thought possible either for a god to become 
incarnate in a man or for a man to become a god. This was especially 
the case with the Dionysiac and Orphic cults. The worshippers of 
Dionysos became Bacchoi, that is, Bacchus became incarnate in them. 41 
The devotees of Osiris were taught that after death they became Osiris; 42 
and Orphism declared that by partaking of an animal consecrated to 
the god the worshipper could enter spiritually into the divine life and 
be made one with the Deity. 43 The large number of papyri dealing with 
this type of thought which have been discovered in recent years, leads 
one to believe that this mysticism must have been very widespread in 
New Testament times. 

And there is one more characteristic of the age which perhaps effected 
a greater change than any other in the belief respecting spirits and 
demons, and that was the emphasis which was put upon ethical ideas 
and moral conduct. It is this moral element that chiefly separates the 
primitive type of religion from that of the higher culture: the religion 
of the savage and barbarian is a crude childlike natural philosophy, 
the religion of the higher type is one that deals with the law of right- 
eousness and holiness, of trust and duty. So far as primitive ideas 
regarding spirits were concerned, the ethical element was almost alto- 
gether absent. Practically the only distinction that was made between 
good and evil spirits was to ascribe that which secured personal advantage 
or pleasure to a good spirit, and that which occasioned loss or pain to 
an evil one. Even among the ancient Hebrews there was no application 
of a moral standard to the acts of a spirit or of Jehovah. 44 But from 
about the time of Isaiah and Plato onward a distinctive moral element 
was introduced, and this continued until in the New Testament period 

41 Arist., Eq., 408. 

42 In the Egyptian Book of the Dead (125) this statement is addressed to the 
worshipper of Osiris, "Happy and blessed one, thou shalt be god instead of mortal." 

43 Pausanias (IX, 39, 7) refers to the belief that Hermes became incarnate in the 
ministrants at the oracle of Trophonius and Lebadea. 

44 Some of the acts of Samson which are ascribed to spiritual agency are not 
specially noteworthy for their moral quality (Jud. 14:19 for example), and even Jehovah 
is made responsible for the sending of false and evil spirits (I Sam. 16:14; I Kg. 22:19- 
23; Amos. 3:6. 



18 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

the movement had attained an immense momentum. The philosophers 
had practically become preachers of morality. The religions of the time 
were placing emphasis more and more upon the inner life; in fact, to 
such an extent did they stress a pure and holy character and type of 
conduct that morbidness and priggishness often ensued. Especially 
was this the case with Orphism. 

Now this emphasis upon morality had a number of distinct effects 
upon the belief in spirits and demons. On the one hand, there arose a 
clearer differentiation between good and evil spirits, on the other hand, 
and doubtless as a result of such a differentiation, a distinction came to 
be made not only as to the place where the souls of the righteous and 
wicked should live in the future, but also as to the nature of the reward 
which they should there receive. The temper of the age was essentially 
dualistic. The sense of sin, the dualistic conception of spirit and matter 
which was developed largely as a result of the teachings of the Orphics 
and Pythagoreans, as well as the influence of Oriental religions, led men 
to divide the innumerable beings of the spirit world into two great 
camps, the one composed of the forces of light and righteousness, the 
other made up of the spirits and demons of darkness and sin. Where 
monarchical institutions prevailed, these forces were thought of as being 
led on the one hand by an Ahura Mazda or a Jehovah, and by an Ahriman 
or Satan on the other. In countries like Greece where democratic ideas 
predominated, these forces, at least the forces of evil, were never organ- 
ized according to such a principle, but the people believed nevertheless 
in these two classes of spirits the one opposed to the other. The Jews 
sometimes distinguished the two classes by calling the one angels and 
the other demons. Yet they also had the thought of evil or fallen 
angels. 45 With the Greeks and Romans the word, demons, included 
both classes. 46 

As a consequence also of this differentiation of spiritual beings an 
evil genius or demon as well as a good one came to be attached to individ- 
uals. 47 Plutarch gives expression to such a belief when he has the 
kakodaimon of Brutus say, "I am thine evil genius; we meet again at 

45 1 En. 6:1-6; II Bar. 56:11-13. 

46 Plutarch makes the statement (Why the Oracles Cease, 17) that Empedocles, 
Plato, Xenocrates and Chrysippus affirm that there are bad demons as well as good 
ones. However with the syncretic philosophers, especially the Neo-Platonists, the 
words, angel and demon, were used synonymously, though they claimed that some 
angels and demons were good but others were evil. Philo, De Gigan., 4. 

47 Verg., Aen., VI, 743; Horace, Epis., II, 187; Valer. Max. 1, 7. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 19 

Philippi. " 48 It was also felt that the fate of a man depended upon the 
ability of his good demon to overcome the evil demons of his enemies. 
Anthony was warned by an Egyptian sorcerer to keep far from the young 
Octavius on the ground that his demon was in fear of that of the latter. 49 

This dualistic conception of the world which seems to have been 
so closely connected with the ethical movement of the time, was respon- 
sible for another characteristic idea of the period, and that was the 
divine or heavenly origin of the soul. This belief is reflected by Plu- 
tarch when he speaks of the rational soul as being "plunged into the 
body," 50 and where he describes the demons as living in the air and 
says that some, not being able to contain themselves, "rove about 
until they are entangled into mortal bodies." 51 Philo too is evidently 
under the influence of the same type of thought. According to his 
conception man is a composition of earthly substance and divine spirit. 
Man's mind or rational soul comes from God's breath or inspiration; 
it is a fragment of Deity; while his irrational soul, that is, the powers 
of sensation, speech, and generation, comes from the rational part. But 
he believes also that the air is full of souls and that some of these descend 
into mortal bodies, while others become the Creator's servants. 52 The 
body then came to be looked upon as a sort of prison for the soul, and 
men felt that to obtain its release the attainment of a certain emotional 
experience or a certain kind of divine knowledge was necessary. Religion 
took an inward turn. Instead of men directing their attention to the 
outer world or outward performance of rites they became introspective. 
The people in general, of course, felt that the help of Deity — perhaps 
in the form of a representative or mediator — was still needed to bring 
this experience or gnosis. But inward purity and that of the individual 
soul was emphasized as never before, while on the part of some teachers 
there was a tendency to affirm even the possibility of obtaining salva- 
tion without any external aid, the original endowment of the soul or a 
good moral character being considered sufficient to save. 53 

48 Brutus, 36. 

49 Ovid, Trist., Ill, 33, 18; V, 5, 10; Horace, Epis., II, 1, 140; Odes, IV, 11, 7: 
Appian, De Bellis Parth., 156; Tertul., Apol., 23; Censorin, De Die Natali, 3. 

50 Discourse Concerning Soc. Demon, 22. 

51 Why the Orac. Cease, 10. 

52 De Opif. Mund., 131 (46); Leg. Alleg., I, 13; De Gigan., 2 and 3; De Somn., 
I, 6; I, 22; and see also Plato, Cratylus, 400. 

53 Heraclitus, frag. 119 (Diels) said, "Character is each man's divinity." Epi- 
charmus, frag. 258 (Kaibel) asserts that man's inner self is his real divinity. Plato 
in Timaeus 90A gives expression to the thought that God has given to each man the 



20 A STUDY OF THE SPIRTT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

This ethical movement also had the effect of separating the place 
where the good spirits lived in the future from the place of the wicked. 54 
At least this was true so far as the spirits of the dead were concerned. 
The older belief regarding the abode of the dead was that it was in 
the underworld or on the earth somewhere and was the home of the 
undistinguished crowd. Both the righteous and the wicked were living 
in it. Even as late as the easy-going and aristocratic Olympians the 
idea of a place of punishment for the unjust is quite absent from the 
thought of the people. But later the conceptions of the joys of Elysium 
for the just and of fiery Tartarus for the wicked came to prevail. And 
by the time of the New Testament period the idea of heaven as the abode 
of the blessed and hell as the place of punishment for the wicked had 
become quite widespread, though it must be admitted that by many the 
underworld was still regarded as the proper abode of all the dead. 55 

Along these various lines we see then wherein the people of the 
Graeco-Roman period had advanced upon the primitive races in their 
notions about spirits and demons. But we are not to think however 
that the earlier conceptions had disappeared: many of them still per- 
sisted; some of them were merely modified. The people of the Graeco- 
Roman world still believed that diseases and mental disorders were 
caused by the actions of demons. They still believed in oracle-spirits. 
They still ascribed the operations of nature to the agency of spiritual 
forces. They still held to the idea of the penetrability of matter and 
never doubted the possibility of a spiritual being or substance taking 
possession of a man's body. They still explained the strange and inex- 
plicable phenomena of their experiences and environment as being due 



rational faculty as a guiding genius. And in Theaetetus 176 and Laws 727 he claims 
that a man can hold communion with Deity through moral action and life. Cf . also 
the statement made by Marcus Aurelius(IT, 17): "What then is that which is able to 
conduct a man? One thing and only one, philosophy. But this consists in keeping 
the demon within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and 
pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose," etc. And although Plutarch believed 
in demons and seemingly in the need of help from without, he does insist upon the 
necessity of a certain type of mind and a proper use of reason before the gods and 
demons will help a man (Disc. Concern. Soc. Dem., 20 and 22). 

54 Oriental dualistic and astrological notions doubtless played a prominent part 
in the process too. 

55 Plato (Rep., 363D and E) describes the Orphic Hades and says that the impious 
and unjust were there all besmirched with mud and were obliged to perform the 
fruitless task of attempting to carry water in a sieve. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 21 

to the presence and activity of spirits. They still claimed that man 
had a double self, or guardian demon. They still peopled the air and 
elements, the heaven and the earth with a host of spiritual beings and 
powers. In fact, one might almost call the New Testament period the 
age of Demonology. 56 

And the large place which this belief in spirits and demons occupied 
in the thinking and life of the people of New Testament times should 
not be regarded as a degeneration, as a backward step in the religious 
progress of the race. In part it was called forth as a defence of mythology 
and as an apologetic for religious practices and traditions that no longer 
accorded with the standards of the new age. But a far more important 
reason for the prominence of this feature of the Graeco-Roman thought- 
world was the pragmatic interests which it served. It was used as a 
means of establishing a connection between man and the Deity and of 
furnishing spiritual support to thousands who because of a sense of their 
own insufficiency and because of the weakening influence of the pes- 
simistic view of life and the world which prevailed, felt the need of some 
superhuman power to help them to overcome the evil forces, both imag- 
ined and real, that they believed surrounded them. 57 That the writers 
of the New Testament books shared in large part the thought of their 
contemporaries with regard to this subject will be seen as we proceed 
with our investigation. 

56 See Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, ch. 1, sees. 5 & 6. It should be noted that 
the Epicureans among the Greeks and the Sadducees among the Jews were almost 
the only ones who had the courage, insight, or disposition to differ from the prevailing 
opinion as to a belief in spirits. 

57 See Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, pp. 425 ff. 



22 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 



CHAPTER II 

Jewish Beliefs in Spirits and Demons 
It is only partly true that the Jews were unique in their religious 
development. It is true that the strong nationalistic sense which grew 
up among them as early at least as the eighth century before Christ 
led them to assume an exclusive attitude toward the peoples of other 
races and lands. It is true that later as a result of their domination by 
foreign powers their nationalistic aspirations and sentiments were either 
intensified or else were compelled to take refuge in the thought of a 
coming deliverer from heaven. In both cases the idea of Israel as 
being God's chosen people dominated their thinking. It is true too 
that when they began to think of their Scriptures as divinely inspired, 
they would not feel any great need of adopting the religious ideas of 
their neighbors, since God's revelation to them was sufficient in itself. 
So both their national hopes and their conception of their sacred writings 
tended, and have tended up to the present time, to keep the Jews separate 
as a people from those among whom they live. And since therefore 
their social and political history has not been exactly like that of other 
peoples, their religious history naturally reveals certain points of unique- 
ness. 

But on the other hand we are not to think of their religious progress 
in the main as exhibiting any very marked features of differentiation 
from that of other ancient peoples. The study of comparative religions 
is revealing the fact that the Hebrews went through quite a similar 
process of development as that described in the previous chapter. It 
is doubtful whether their isolation and exclusiveness was ever so rigid 
that they were altogether a law unto themselves. It is difficult to 
believe that a people politically dominated in turn by Assyrians, Baby- 
lonians, Persians, Greeks, Egyptians, Syrians, and Romans, and in 
large part scattered throughout the then known world could keep itself 
aloof from all the influences of the culture and civilization that made 
up their environment. The Sadducees and such men like Philo and 
Josephus are proof sufficient to show that both the Palestinian Jews 
and the Jews of the Dispersion were affected by the influence of the 
Gentile world, the former, of course, not coming under the force of this 
influence to as large a degree simply because the contact was not so 
close. So while being willing to admit the uniqueness of some of the 
Jewish religious conceptions and even their superiority over some of 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 23 

those of the other ethnic religions of the time whether in the richness 
of their ethical tones or in the loftiness of their God-ideas, we can not 
help but feel that in many ways, especially in their notions of spirits, 
the Jews were a part of the world in which they lived, and hence that 
much that has been said and written about the Jewish religion has been 
largely an ideal picture. The best in Jewish religion has generally been 
contrasted with that which was the worst in contemporary systems and 
cults. This method has served a good apologetic purpose. 

We are here primarily concerned with the post-exilic spirit-concep- 
tions of the Jews and particularly with their ideas at the time when 
Christianity first began as a movement. For the pneumatic experiences 
of the first Christians issued from life rather than from the reading of a 
book, and hence must be connected up with the contemporary Jewish 
thought-world rather than with the spirit-conceptions recorded in the 
Old Testament. And yet for two reasons a word is in place here regarding 
the Old Testament ideas of spirits, (1) because these ideas reveal the fact 
that the Hebrews in the main followed the universal course of religious 
development, and (2) because the early Christians did make use of the 
Old Testament Scriptures and interpreted some of their experiences 
in the light of what they learned there. The use of the prophecy of 
Joel by Peter on the day of Pentecost is an illustration of the way in 
which this method was used. 

It is clear that in many ways the ancient Hebrews had the same 
ideas of spirits and the same psychology as the other ancient peoples. 
The soul was a spiritual being animating the body. 1 At death it departed 
from the body and joined the other departed spirits. 2 Intercourse 
between the dead and living was held to be possible. 3 A spirit could 
inhabit an inanimate object. 4 Spirits were the cause of disease and 
mental disorders. 5 Any occurrence or act of an awe-inspiring, unusual, 
unexpected, or remarkable nature was ascribed to the influence of a 
spirit. 6 The belief in oracle-spirits was particularly well-developed and 
a large part of the spirit-phenomena of the Old Testament is concerned 

1 Gen. 2:7. 

2 Gen. 49:33 et al. It is doubtful whether the Jews ever thought of a spirit in 
an incorporeal form of existence. Their belief in the resurrection of the body shows 
that even in their later history they still clung to the corporeal idea of spirit. 

3 1 Sam. 28:3-14. 

4 Ex 7:8-13. 

5 1 Sam. 16:14 ff. 

6 Jud. 14:6; I Sam. 18:10 ff.; Amos. 3:8; Job 9:24. 



24 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

with the operations of the spirit of prophecy. Supernatural knowledge 
was obtained either by a spirit descending into a man or by the soul 
of man leaving his body and penetrating the spiritual world. 7 Com- 
mencing with a belief in a plurality of divine beings, as the term Elohim 
indicates, there grew up gradually a monotheistic conception of the Deity, 
surrounded by groups of subordinate beings, cherubim, spirits, and 
seraphim. 8 These subordinate beings acted as Jehovah's attendants 
or as His messengers. Sometimes Jehovah came into direct intercourse 
with men, but He also accomplished His purposes through His double 
or Angel. 9 Possession of a spirit could be acquired by the playing of 
musical instruments, 10 by dancing, by visiting lonely or holy places, 11 
by lying or kneeling on the ground, 12 by offering sacrifice, 13 and by eating 
an object in which a spirit was thought to reside. 14 A knowledge of 
the Deity's will was sought by prayer, 15 by dreams, by Urim, and by 
the aid of prophecy. 16 The nature of spirit was conceived of either 
as a personalized being or as a fine substance. The idea of a personalized 
being prevails where the activity of the spirit is thought of as transient 
or occasional; the fluidum idea occurs where the operation of the spirit 
is more permanent and abiding, or where it is brought into relation with 
the cosmos. 17 The belief in the possibility of this spirit-substance 
penetrating the body indicates that the Hebrews also had no difficulty 
about the penetrability of matter. The power rather than the ethical 
character of spirit-activity is emphasized; in fact, even to Jehovah is 

7 IIKi. 19:7; Is. 6. 

8 See Barton, Encyc. of Rel. and Eth., art., "Spirits and Demons (Hebrew)." 

9 It should be noted that the prophets of the eighth and seventh centuries, par- 
ticularly Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos and Hosea, are practically silent so far as the Spirit 
of God is concerned. The reason for this is not well known but may perhaps be found 
in the strong monotheistic tendencies of the times, which would react against the 
hypostatization of a second divine Being, or in the aversion with which these prophets 
with their loftier ideals viewed the ordinary prophets who ascribed their inspiration 
to the operation of the Spirit. 

10 1 Sam. 10:5; 16:14 ff.; II Ki. 3:15. 

11 Num. 22:9, 20; II Sam. 7:4; Ex. 34:28; I Ki. 19:8 ff.; II Ki. 1:9. 

12 Num. 24:4. 

13 Num. 23. 

14 Jer. 15:16; Ez. 2:9 ff. 
15 1 Sam. 8:6 f.; Is. 21:6; Hab. 2:1. 
16 1 Sam. 28:6. 

17 Spirit as a personalized being: I Ki. 22:24; I Sam. 16:15; Jud. 9:23; 13:6; as 
substance: Num. 11:17, 25; II Ki. 2:9, 15; Gen. 1:2. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 25 

ascribed the sending of evil spirits. 18 If a man had spiritual power 
or was possessed by a spirit, he could heal diseases, perform wonders, 
raise the dead, foretell future events, and enter into ecstatic conditions. 
And although a passage like Deut. 18:9 ff. would indicate that magic 
and sorcery were put under the official ban, such a regulation in itself 
presupposes the practice of the magic arts among the people. 19 

It is not difficult to see in the face of these facts how closely the 
Hebrews were related to primitive ideas on the subject of belief in spirits 
and demons. If instead of emphasizing the points wherein the Jewish 
ideas differ from those of other religious systems we should give due 
consideration to the common elements between them, we would be 
able to see that in the main the Jewish line of development was parallel 
to that of other races. The question then arises whether this parallel 
development continued in post-exilic and Graeco-Roman times. 

We have already referred in the previous chapter to the growth of 
the monotheistic idea among the Jews, a growth that seems to have 
been a part of the general religious progress of the age. 20 If the Jews 
were at all unique in the development of this conception, it was merely 
a matter of priority in point of time; they no doubt antedated the Greeks 
and peoples of the West in their monotheistic views, but this came 
about chiefly as a result of the influence of the early monarchical ideas 
of the Oriental States and perhaps of the Persian religion upon Judaism 
in exilic times. There was also noticeable among the Jews a marked 
tendency toward transcendentalism. The prophets preached the 
holiness and majesty of Jehovah, — particularly was this the case with 
Isaiah, — and this was at least one of the factors that led to such a separa- 
tion of God from the world as to cause many to feel that intercourse 
between God and man could only be established through some mediating 
agent or being, such as the Spirit, the Wisdom of God, or the Messiah. 21 

18 Even as late as the time of Job this matter had not been settled (Job 9:24). 
In Is. 19:14; 29:10; and in I Ki. 22:20 ff. references to Jehovah's sending evil spirits 
are made; but in Hos. 4:12; 5:4; and Zach. 13:2 Jehovah is put over against evil spir- 
its while in Num. 5: 14, 20 an evil spirit is represented as acting on its own initiative. 
Even in I Sam. 18:10 ff., if we compare vss. 10 and 12, we notice that there is an 
antagonism between Jehovah and the "evil spirit from God." 

19 See further on this subject Blau, Das altjudische Zauberwesen, where the magi- 
cal practices of the Jews are dealt with in greater detail. 

20 Cf. for example, Is. 45:6; 43:11, 12; 44:6. 

21 Jehovah is the Most High and the Holy One of Israel (Is. 6:3; 43:15). His 
glory is inconceivable (IV Ez. 8:21). In Apocalyptic literature His actions are gen- 
erally represented as mediated through the agency of angels or the Spirit. Angels 



26 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

The Jews as a whole did not fully appreciate the services of the Roman 
State; in fact for the most part they resented the Roman domination of 
Palestine. But that element in their religious life which the State-cult 
failed to furnish them was supplied by their Messianic hopes and ideals. 
The individualistic tendencies of the period were also noticeably at 
work among the Jewish people of the post-exilic period. Many came to 
feel that before their national and Messianic hopes could be realized 
the proper personal relation between God and the Jews had to be estab- 
lished. There was a longing for personal salvation. Legalism became 
so prominent at the time very largely as a result of this desire for 
right relationship with the Deity. The preaching of John the Baptist 
and the success that attended it is a further indication that such was 
the situation. The ethical movement of the times made itself manifest 
also among the Jews. The possession of the Spirit meant no longer mere 
raving or the performance of some miraculous deed, but the preaching 
of righteousness and the will of God. The Wisdom literature sprang up, 
and more and more the emphasis came to be placed upon righteous living. 
As a result good and evil spirits were more definitely differentiated 22 
and the idea of future retribution assumed a constantly growing promi- 
nence in the minds of the people. The dualistic world-view dominated 
their thinking, and the Apocalyptic visions of the forces of God or the 
Messiah on the one hand and the forces of Satan and his angels on the 
other, struggling to gain the mastery of the world, show how this dualism 
affected Jewish notions of the spirit-world. The syncretism of the 
age and the influences of other cults upon Judaism had the effect of 
increasing the number of angels and demons to such an extent that the 
Jews on this point differed very little from their contemporaries. 23 The 

have charge of the destinies of nations (Dan. 10:13). They are used to reveal what 
is hidden and to instruct the Apocalyptic seers (Eth. En. 40:8; Test. Levi. 2:6; II 
Bar. 54:5). See also the conception of Sirach regarding Wisdom, especially ch. 24. 

22 The angels were in general good, the demons evil. The angels are either con- 
ceived of as anthropomorphic (Eth. En. 67:8) or as composed of fiery substance (II 
Bar. 21:6). They perform all kinds of helpful services (Test. XII passim.). A num- 
ber of them receive names (Eth. En. 40:1-10; 20:1-8; and see Is. 63:9; Dan. 8:16 
10:13). They become also the instruments of chastisement (II Bar. 7:1; 8:1), and 
one stands out as the Angel of Death (II Bar. 21:23). The demons are under the 
leadership of Satan (Eth. En. 69:4ff.). They are fallen angels (Eth. En. 6; 15:8-9) 
and are responsible for the evil propensities and sins of men (Test. Reub. 2:1-3; 3:1-6; 
Levi. 3:2), for all the troubles and afflictions of the world (Eth. En. 15:11), and for 
tormenting the soul after it leaves the body (Test. Ash. 6:3). 

23 Eth. En. 40:1 tells of a vision of "thousands of thousands and ten thousand 
times ten thousand ... a multitude beyond number and reckoning who stood 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 27 

reticence regarding the belief in spirits of nature which is noticeable in 
the Old Testament literature begins to disappear and some at least of 
the phenomena and forces of nature are attributed to spirit influence. 24 
They came to believe also in angels that acted as guardians not only 
over individuals but over the nations as well. 25 

It seems to be clear then that the Jewish belief in spirits and demons 
was quite similar to that of the surrounding nations. 

It is necessary here to deal also with the expression, Spirit of God, 
which occurs so frequently in Jewish literature, for the Jews believed 
not only in spirits in general, but in a special Spirit that was somehow 
closely related to Jehovah. Various explanations have been given as 
to the origin of this Ruh and its relation to Jehovah, 26 but the simplest 
theory is either to regard this Spirit as the double or phantom of Jehovah 
or as an emanation of fine substance from His being. Such a theory at 
least has the advantage of being in accord with what we know of the 
primitive ideas of the soul and spiritual beings. When the Spirit of 
Jehovah assumed human form, as he often did when a special revelation 
was to be made, he was called the Angel of God or Jehovah. 27 The 
instances where Jehovah takes of the Spirit that was upon Moses and 
puts it on the seventy elders, 28 and where Elisha receives a double portion 
from the Spirit of Elijah 29 are clear cases of the substantial conception 
of the Spirit. 

In early Hebrew history there does not seem to have been any uni- 
fication of spirit-activities and phenomena; various operations which 
later were ascribed to the agency of the Spirit were still attributed to 
the activity of inferior spirits. Particularly was this the case with 

before the Lord of Spirits." In this book God is called Lord of Spirits more than 
100 times. In Ps. 106:37; Eth. En. 19:1; 99:7; II Bar. 4:7 we find instances where the 
deities of heathen nations are considered as demons or evil spirits. 

24 See Eth. En. 60:17-21. 

25 Ps. 34:7; 91:11; Dan. 10:20. 

26 Rees thinks that at first it was "an elementary form of independent personal- 
ity, like a ghost of primitive animism, acting as the agent of Yahweh" (The Holy 
Spirit, p. 18). Volz is of the opinion that it was a religious survival from the time when 
the Hebrews were still polytheists and was at one time an independent divine 
being but later became subordinated to Jehovah when the latter became the tribal 
Deity (Der Geist Gottes, pp. 5 f., 22 f., 52 f., 62 f). Neither of these explanations 
is entirely satisfactory. 

"Gen. 16:7; 21:17; 22:11; 31:11. 
28 Num. 11:25. 
29 II Ki. 2:9, 15. 



28 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

such phenomena as outbursts of anger or other immoral tendencies, 
which were ascribed to the agency of evil spirits. 30 But with the rise 
of ethical and monotheistic ideas the operations regarded as Spirit- 
phenomena due to Jehovah's activity were gradually unified, those 
bearing the approval of the moral conscience of the time being attributed 
either to Jehovah Himself, as was the case in the eighth and seventh 
centuries, or to the Spirit of Jehovah, while those that offended the moral 
sense were considered as due to the influence of evil spirits or demons. 
In this way the Spirit became almost the exclusive agent of Jehovah's 
activity. 31 

The range of the activity of the Spirit grew with the moral and 
mental development of the people. The activity of the Spirit which at 
first manifested itself chiefly in strange and abnormal acts and phenomena, 
such as Samson's deeds of prowess, was later under the varying social 
and political circumstances of the people extended to cover the artist's 
skill, the inspiration of the poet and reformer, and the future hope 
of the nations. Then under the influence of the ethical movement it 
was made to include even the moral and intellectual life of man. 32 It 
becomes the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, righteousness, and pur- 
ification. The idea of the Spirit develops from the emotional to the 
intellectual, from the sudden, explosive, and external to the habitual, 
normal and rational. Indeed we might here state the rule by which the 
spirit-phenomena of every age have been judged as such, viz., whatever 
is conceived of as supernatural is due to spirit-agency. And therefore 

30 1 Sam. 18:10; I Ki. 22:19-22; Is. 29:10; Hos. 4:12; 5:4. 

31 It should be noted here that according to the Hebrew idea the activity of the 
Spirit of God was confined chiefly to the human soul and to the Jewish people. And 
this may be one reason why prophecy was so highly prized by the Jews. The Spirit's 
relation to nature is not dwelt upon to any extent, outside of its connection with crea- 
tion (Gen. 1:2). It was chiefly among the extra-Palestinian Jews as Philo and Slav. 
En. in particular attest, that the subject of the Spirit in its relation to the universe 
attracted much attention. 

32 We see this already in the Messianic conceptions of the greater prophets (Is. 
11:2; 28:6). Ezekiel connects man's inner life with the Spirit (36:26-27 et al). And 
the moral and intellectual activity of the Spirit in the heart of man is especially no- 
ticeable in the Test. XII. Joseph was a good man because he had the Spirit in him 
(Test. Sim. 44); the Spirit of understanding came upon Levi. (Test. Levi. 2:3); the 
Spirit of truth testifies to all things (Test. Jud. 20:1, 5); if a man had the Spirit he was 
clean in heart (Test. Benj. 8:2); the soul indeed was the Holy Spirit of God breathed 
into man (Test. Naph. App. I, 10:9). The conception here is very close to an identi- 
fication of the Spirit of God with the spirit of man and of the activity of the Spirit 
with the moral and intellectual life (Test. Jud. 20). 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 29 

what men regard as spirit-operations is conditioned by their world- view, 
that is, by what they regard as belonging to the supernatural. 

But whatever the Jews may or may not have regarded as due to the 
activity of the Spirit, there can be no question but that they considered 
prophecy as the chief gift of the Spirit. Of course, the priest, the king, 
the hero, the sage, and even the scribe were also regarded as inspired 
persons, but they do not figure so prominently in Jewish history as agents 
of the Spirit as did the prophets. The latter were the most influential 
leaders at least up to the close of the Old Testament Canon, and the use 
which the New Testament writers made of the Old Testament prophe- 
tical writings as well as the prominent place which the prophet held in 
the early church shows the influence which the Old Testament prophets 
exerted even in Christian circles. 

A distinct development is also noticeable in the Jewish conception 
of prophecy. At first it was very little more than emotionalism and 
frenzy. But with the advance of ethical and spiritual conceptions the 
gift was filled with a richer and loftier content; it became the means of 
bringing to the people the revelation of God's will and of stimulating 
not only a spirit of nationalism but a desire for a pure and righteous 
life. The prophets became preachers, reformers, and statesmen. With 
the closing of the Old Testament Canon and with the waning of national 
hopes prophecy took another turn in its development. The former 
made it difficult for a prophet to get a hearing for any book that he 
might write, and that explains why the prophetical literature from the 
time of the composition of Daniel is all pseudonymous. The latter 
caused a pessimistic view of the world to arise and the prophets sought 
refuge in Messianism, Apocalypticism, and individualism. 

Under such circumstances it is no surprise that prophecy lost some 
of its prestige and regard in the eyes of the people, and especially in 
the estimation of those who placed their hope in the Law. But it is a 
mistake to think as many have done and do even today that between 
the Old and New Testaments prophecy ceased. 33 The composition of 
such works as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Enoch, the 
Apocalypse of Baruch and IV Ezra is literary proof that prophecy at 
this time was not dead at least. 34 It need of course not be denied that 

33 Gunkel, D. Wirkungen d. heil. Geistes, p. 50; Charles, Apocrypha and Pseud- 
epigrapha of the O. T., II, pp. VIII, IX and 163; also his work, Religious Develop- 
ment between the Old and New Testaments, esp. p. 15. Josephus (Apion, I, 8) says 
that there was no exact succession of prophets since the time of Artaxerxes. 

34 Rees, The Holy Spirit, pp. 31 f. 



30 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

prophecy was at a lower ebb and that the thoughts of the people were 
to an extent directed rather to the past operations of the Spirit in the 
prophets or to the future outpouring of the Spirit that would accompany 
the establishment of the Messianic kingdom; and yet there was no time 
when there were not prophets among the people with their inspired 
message if the people had only been willing to recognize them. 

In this way did the Spirit become a form of expressing the activity 
of Jehovah. But there is another line of development in the later 
period of Jewish history which has often been pointed out, and that 
is the tendency to hypostatize the Spirit or a similar being, which was 
regarded as a mediator between the world and a transcendent God. 
Among the sages this being was called Wisdom and was practically 
identified with the Spirit. Among the Hellenistic Jews the Logos was 
the term sometimes employed to represent the idea. But it is rather 
doubtful whether the Palestinian Jews ever went so far as to think 
of the Spirit, Wisdom, or Word as more than a personification. It 
is true that Sirach regarded Wisdom as a premundane being, 35 but his 
language in general hardly goes farther than to personify this divine 
attribute. It is in the extra-Palestinian Wisdom of Solomon and Philo 
that the conception of Wisdom as a being possessing independent exis- 
tence and power of self-initiative finds support, 36 but even here the 
evidence is not conclusive, for Wisdom is so closely connected with God 
that it can very readily be explained as His personal representative or 
double, or as an emanation from Him, 37 the thought being quite similar 
to that of the Spirit or of the Messiah. The Jews of this time were 
perhaps too rigidly monotheistic to permit of a real duality in the heaven- 
ly pantheon, though they may have come to conceive of the Spirit as a 
being while of independent existence, yet of subordinate rank to Jehovah. 

It is in place here to speak of the Jewish idea that prevailed in New 
Testament times regarding the Spirit's relation to salvation. As is 
very evident, the Jews were not mystics. Their conception of a holy 
God prevented the thought of direct contact of Deity with man. God 
could not Himself come down from heaven and become incarnate in man. 
Hence the idea of incarnation is practically absent in their literature, 
especially in that of the New Testament period. 38 Likewise their 

^Ecclus. 1:4; 24:9. 
36 Wis. 9:1, 2, 10; cf. 18:15. 
"Wis. 7:25, 26. 

38 The use of the adjective, holy, when reference was made to the Spirit was 
simply a reflection of the growing consciousness of the holiness of God. When God 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 31 

conception of the majesty of God, a conception so lofty as to make 
merely the use of the name of God a dangerous thing, and their concep- 
tion of the sinful nature of man prevented them from believing in the 
deification of man. For a man to say that he was a god was to commit 
blasphemy. This accounts for the fact that the idea of regeneration, 
of being born a son of God, is not a part of the Jewish thought-world. 
No, to the Jew salvation was the sustaining of proper covenant relations 
with God, and it was only in this sense that they thought of themselves 
as being the children or sons of God. If the nation as a whole kept its 
covenant with Jehovah, he would send His representative to save it. 
If the individual carried out the provisions of the Law, he would be 
saved. But of course it came to be felt from the time of Jeremiah and 
Ezekiel onward that the old external requirements of the covenant were 
inadequate, and the establishing of a new covenant in the hearts of men 
was necessary. 39 The one who would come to teach men the conditions 
of this new covenant was a prophet like unto Moses or Elijah and he 
would be equipped with the power of the Spirit of God; for this was to 
be a covenant not of external rites but of the Spirit. This prophet was 
to be the Savior because he would teach men what to do to be saved. 
Men would repent and five in obedience to the will of God which would 
be made known by this Spirit-endowed prophet. 40 They thus would 
receive forgiveness of sins and be reinstated into proper covenant rela- 
tions with the Deity. With the restoration of the nation to proper 
relationship with Jehovah would come an outpouring of the Spirit on 
all men. 41 In a word forgiveness expresses the Jewish idea of salvation, 
and this forgiveness was granted to the individual not only because of 
his own obedience to the Law and to the will of God, but also, and per- 
haps chiefly, because of his connection with the Jewish nation. The 
thought of a mystical union with the Deity is absent from the Jewish 
conception of salvation. 

We see then that although the Jews went through the various stages 
of progress in respect to their belief in spirits that characterized the 
other races and nations, they nevertheless as a result of certain peculia- 
rities in their social and political history developed certain unique 

came to be thought of as holy, it was natural that the Spirit who was His represen- 
tative and was constituted of the same substance or Stoff should be called holy also. 

39 Jer. 31:31-35; Ez. 36:26, 27; 11:19, 20 et al. 

40 Mai. 4:5, 6. 

41 Joel. 2:28 ff. 



32 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

features that to an extent marked them off from the other peoples. 
These features, to name only the most important ones, were a loftier 
and more transcendental conception of God, an emphasis upon conduct 
rather than upon belief as a condition to the attaining of salvation, the 
idea of forgiveness rather than regeneration as constituting the process of 
salvation, the belief that a proper covenant relationship rather than 
a mystical union with God effected salvation, their stress upon the 
nationalistic idea of salvation and their use of the term Messiah to denote 
the coming deliverer, the large role which the prophet occupied in their 
scheme of salvation, and the belief in the resurrection of the body which 
they based upon their corporeal conception of spirits. 

It was in this kind of an atmosphere that John the Baptist and Jesus 
were born and reared. Just what their beliefs regarding spirits and the 
Spirit of God was, is rather difficult to say in view of the fact that our 
sole sources of information, viz., the Gospel records, reflect the views 
rather of their authors than those of the characters dealt with therein. 
We can arrive only by way of inference at what they doubtless believed 
regarding spiritual beings. John was regarded as a prophet by Jews 
and Christians alike, 42 and doubtless felt the prophetic call himself. 
If so, then he must have conceived of himself as having been inspired 
by the Spirit of God. But he evidently did not preach anything regard- 
ing the coming of the Spirit upon men. He preached the Jewish idea of 
repentance and forgiveness of sins. He may even have prophesied the 
coming of a Messiah from heaven; at least, if the statement that he 
preached about the imminency of the Kingdom of God is at all his- 
torical, 43 he doubtless presented the subject in accordance with current 
Apocalyptic views. Whether John performed the rite of baptism because 
he thought of water as having any spiritual potency within it is difficult 
to say. It is true that water, and especially running water, was quite 
generally conceived of as being inhabited by spirits, 44 and John too may 
have had the same belief. It is to be noticed at least that John evi- 
dently preferred running water in which to baptize. 

What Jesus believed regarding spirits and the Spirit is equally dif- 
ficult to tell. But he too must have regarded himself as a prophet 

42 Matthew 14:5; 21:32; Luke 7:26. The Christians in order by way of contrast 
to enhance the greatness of Jesus reckoned John, the official forerunner of Jesus, as 
even more than a prophet. 

43 Matthew 3:2; Mark 1:15. 

44 Eth. En. 69 :22 mentions the spirit of water and perhaps indicates that the 
Palestinian Jews of John's day had this conception of water. See also Didache, 7:2. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 33 

endowed with the Spirit of God; his message was the prophet's message 
of liberty, healing, and hope to the poor. 45 His sparing use of the term, 
Holy Spirit, at least according to the records of the Synoptists, would 
indicate that in his message he did not lay the stress upon an outpouring 
of the Holy Spirit upon men; his message must have concerned itself 
chiefly with the living of a righteous life and with the notion of a direct 
fellowship with God. 46 The mention of the Holy Spirit in the Beelzebub 
account shows simply that Jesus felt himself to be endowed with the 
Spirit of God for the exorcising of demons and was unwilling that others 
should ascribe his power to any wicked agency. 47 The ascription of 
divine inspiration to David in the writing of the Psalms 48 accords with 
the current Jewish conceptions of the inspiration of their Scriptures, 
and may well be a saying of Jesus. The other references to the Holy 
Spirit in the Synoptists 49 reflect no doubt the ideas of post-Pentecostal 
days and can hardly be attributed to Jesus. 

It is possible to attribute to Jesus a belief in the spiritual cause of 
sickness. When he is said to have rebuked the fever of Peter's mother- 
in-law, 50 it seems clear that he thought of the fever as a demon or spirit 
dwelling within her. The rebuking of the wind and the sea in the story 
of the storm on the lake is a similar case, with this difference however 
that here he supposedly manifests a belief in wind and sea demons. 51 
There can be little doubt but that he healed those who were epileptic, 
insane, or troubled with other mental disorders. 52 And it is to be pre- 
sumed that he was in accord with the psychology of the day in ascribing 

45 Luke 4:18 ff.; 7:22. Cf. also 4:24. 

46 The Sermon on the Mount might be cited in illustration of this point. Notice 
that the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in it. 

47 Mark 3:29; Matthew 12:28, 32; Luke 12:10; 11:20. 

48 Mark 12:36; Matthew 22:43. 

49 Luke 11:13; Mark 13:11; Matthew 10:19; Luke 12:11; Matthew 28:19; Luke 
24; 48. The references to the Holy Spirit ascribed to Jesus in the fourth Gospel can 
hardly be regarded as historical and hence do not come under consideration at this 
point. 

50 Luke 4:39; cf. Mark 1:29-31 and Matthew 8:14, 15. This however may be a 
reflection of Greek ideas, for it is found only in Luke. And yet when we read a pas- 
sage like Eth. En. 69:12, we have to admit that the notion that abnormal conditions 
of the body were due to demonic influence was held by the Jews also. See also Luke 
13:11, 12 where Jesus uses the word, "loosed," just as if the woman had been bound 
by the spirit. Cf. vs. 16. 

51 Mark 4:39; Matthew 8:26; Luke 8:24. Jewish belief in spirits dwelling in 
water, wind, sea and other objects of nature may be found expressed in Eth. En. 60: 
11 ff.; 6:20; 75:5; 15:10; but see esp. 60:16 and 69:22. 

62 Mark 1:23-26, 27; 3:11; 5:2, 18; 6:7; 7:25 and paraUels in Matthew and Luke. 



34 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

such phenomena to the presence and activity of demons. We have no 
right to read into Jesus' mind conceptions and explanations which we 
hold today regarding these mental aberrations and claim that Jesus was 
merely accommodating himself to the beliefs of the people of his time. 
It is more than probable that he in many of these popular notions was 
one with his contemporaries. 53 And he must have been quite sincere 
when he addressed the demons which he thought had taken possession 
of those afflicted with severe mental disorders. The temptation of Jesus 
by Satan must have been a real experience to him, for according to 
current notions Satan was regarded as the tempter of men. 54 The 
conception of Satan as being the Prince of demons, and of Mammon as 
being the demon of greed may also have been held by Jesus. 55 It is 
likewise to be supposed that he believed in the existence of angels and 
in their functions as guardians of men, as instruments of chastisement, 
and as the ministers and messengers of God and the Messiah. 56 

On these various points it is doubtless true that John and Jesus were 
in accord with the Palestinian Jewish thought of their day. Their 
notions of spirits and of the Spirit were no doubt very much like those of 
their contemporaries. 

There are some indications in Acts that Jewish ideas were prominent 
among the first Christian group of believers, though it is difficult to say 
whether these ideas were Palestinian or extra-Palestinian, for their 
features are not sufficiently distinct to permit of a clear differentiation. 
The use of the word, angel, and the prominent role the angels play in 
the Acts' narratives are quite certainly Jewish features. 57 The con- 
ception of the Spirit also shows some Jewish characteristics: the occa- 
sional outpouring of the Spirit in order to equip the disciples for the 
preaching of a prophetic message, 58 the sudden bearing away of Philip 
by the Spirit, 59 which by the way shows a close resemblance to the way 
in which the Spirit bare Jesus away to be tempted as well as to the 
violent experiences of the Apocalyptists, the belief in the inspiration of 

53 See Heitmiiller, Im Namen Jesu, p. 140 ff. for the belief of the Jews in demons 
and their practice of exorcism. The words in Matthew 12:43-45 may quite well 
have been uttered by Jesus. 

54 This function of Satan is referred to as early as the time of Job. A later expres- 
sion of it is found in Eth. En. 69 :4 ff. 

65 Mark 3:22; Matthew 9:34; Luke 11:15; Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13. 

56 Matthew 13:39, 49; 16:27; 18:10; Luke 16:22. Also II Bar. 7:1; 8:1. 

"Acts 5:19; 7:53; 8:26; 10:3; 12:7, 15 a al. 

58 Acts 4:31; 6:10 et al. 

89 Acts 8:38; cf Mark 1:12; Ez. 3:12; 8:3 a al. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 35 

the Old Testament writers 60 all point to a Jewish origin. Paul's preach- 
ing against the worship of images betrays his Jewish aversion to idolatry. 61 
The representation, in the early chapters of Acts at least, that Jesus was 
the Servant of God is surely a reference to the Servant of the Old Tes- 
tament prophets; 62 and the statements that Jesus was a man approved of 
God by mighty works and wonders, a prophet like unto Moses, anointed 
with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and 
healing the sick and demonized, doubtless are to be reckoned as repre- 
sentative of the early Jewish Christian estimate of the personality of 
Jesus. 63 These references are sufficient to show that the early Christians 
so far as their belief in spirits was concerned were genetically related 
to the Jews, and particularly to the Palestinian Jews. 

When we turn to the extra-Palestinian or Hellenistic Jews who came 
more under the influence of Greek and Gentile thought, we notice a 
change in their ideas of the spirit world. These ideas we gather from the 
writings of non-Palestinian Jews, such as the Sibylline Oracles (in part), 
II, III, and IV Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Slavonic Enoch, III 
Baruch, and the works of Philo and Josephus. Those of particular worth 
for the study of our subject are the Wisdom of Solomon, Slavonic Enoch, 
III Baruch, and Philo. Of course, it is difficult always to tell very defi- 
nitely just what non-Palestinian traits and conceptions are to be found 
in these writings, and yet a few points of differentiation between Pales- 
tinian and extra-Palestinian ideas can with fair assurance be made. 

So far as the beliefs in angels and demons were concerned, the non- 
Palestinians doubtless had a greater number of such beings in their 
thought-world, and they were more prone to syncretize the Greek idea 
of demon with the Jewish idea of angel. 64 The functions of angels were 
enlarged in that they were made to be intercessors for men to God, 
whereas in the earlier and more Palestinian thought, they were chiefly 
messengers of God to men. 65 There seems to have been a disposition 

60 Acts 4:25; 28:25. 

61 Acts 17:29; 19:26. 

62 Acts 3:13, 26; 4:27, 30; Is. 42:1; 52:13; 53:11. 

63 Acts 2:22; 3:22; 10:38. 

64 Philo, De Gigan. 4. In III Bar., chs. 12 and 13 where three classes of angels 
are described as having charge of three classes of men, the conception is no doubt 
peculiar to non-Palestinian Jews. 

65 See Dan. 6:2; Test. Levi. 3:5 ff.; 5:6,7; Apoc. Moses 35:2; Adam and Eve 9:3; 
Tob. 12:5; III Bar. 12:1. Cf. Heb. 1:14 and Rev. 8:3. In Tob. 3:16; 12:12 and III 
Bar. 11:4 angels are regarded as the bearers of men's prayers to God. 



36 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

also to divide the upper regions into a tier of heavens. 66 Their concep- 
tion of the inspiration of their Scriptures was not quite so fast and rigid; 
at least, as the history of the Old Testament Apocrypha attests, they 
continued to admit books into the Old Testament Canon long after the 
Palestinian Jews had regarded the Canon as practically closed. Their 
Messianism was not so nationalistic as that of the Jews of Palestine, 
but concerned itself more with the salvation of the individual. The 
sphere of the activity of the Spirit which according to the old Hebrew 
idea was confined chiefly to the souls of men, was enlarged to include 
all the activities of nature. 67 The Spirit assumes more of the aspect 
of a cosmic principle, the principle of order in nature. 68 Again there is 
a tendency to identify the Spirit with the reason in man and as such to 
regard it as the universal endowment of mankind. 69 Likewise a dis- 
position to hypostatize the Spirit manifests itself, and under the influence 
of Greek and mystical thought it is identified with the Logos or Wisdom 
and conceived of as the medium through which a transcendent God 
reveals Himself to man's soul. 

In order to make these points clearer we might deal in greater detail 
with the conception of Philo and the author of Wisdom. Philo 70 was 
one with the Jews of Palestine in believing that the Spirit was the cause 
of ecstacy, prophecy, and inspiration, 71 and he himself claims to have 

66 See Slav. En. where seven heavens are described and III Bar. where there are 
only five. This was doubtless an idea that arose from contact with Babylonian, 
Parsee, and Greek thought (Charles, Book of the Secrets of Enoch, pp. xxx-xlvii). 
But the conception of a multifold heaven is also found in Palestinian thought. See 
Test. Levi. 2:7-3:8 and Asc. of Is. 7-11. 

67 With the exception of certain passages in Eth. En., IV Ez., and the story of 
creation in Gen., it is difficult to find much in Palestinian Jewish literature on the 
relation of the Spirit or spirits to nature. But in Slav. En. 11:4, 5; and III Bar. 8:4 
the order of nature is given over to the charge of angels. 

68 Notice the large element of cosmological speculation in Slav. En. And see 
Philo., De Gigan. 6; Plant. Noe. 6; Ebriet. 27; Opif. Mund. 45. 

69 Philo, Gigan. 5; Quis Rer. Div. 52; Quod det potiori, 22, et al. 

70 For further study of Philo reference might be made to Drummond, Philo 
Judaeus, 1888, and Brechier, Les idees philos. et relig. de Philon d'Alex., 1908. On 
his views of the Logos see Volz, op. cit., p. 187 f., and Rees, op. cit., ch. 3. 

71 Several significant passages on this point deserve quotation: "So long there- 
fore as our mind still shines and hovers around, pouring as it were a noontide light 
into the whole soul, we being masters of ourselves are not possessed by any extraneous 
influence; but when it approaches its setting, then, as is natural, a trance which pro- 
ceeds from inspiration, takes violent hold of us, and madness seizes upon us, for when 
the divine light shines, the human fight sets, and when the divine light sets, this 
other rises and shines; and this very frequently happens to the race of prophets; for 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 37 

had pneumatic experiences; but he did not confine the activity of the 
divine Spirit to this kind of phenomena; it had for him a broader and 
more cosmic function. 72 He was also like them a believer in angels 
and in their ability to assume human form; 73 but he believed also in 
such Greek beings as the seminal Logoi of the Stoics, the powers of the 
ethereal regions, and the archetypal ideas of Platonism. 74 He departed 
most however from them in his doctrine of the Logos and it is with this 
that we are here particularly concerned. 

He calls the Logos the image of God, 75 the elder son or first-born, 76 
the eternal Word, 77 the seal and interpreter of God, 78 the highpriest of 
the universe, 79 the vicegerent of God, 80 the fountain or source of wisdom; 81 
in fact in several places he even uses the title, Beds, or the adjective, 
0elos, when speaking of the Logos, implying thereby that the Logos 
was of the same quality or essence as God, not that he was necessarily 
a person on an equality with Him. 82 The process of hypostatization 
seems practically complete here. Furthermore the Lo gos was the agent 
of God in creation, and constituted the pattern or archetype of all 
created things. 83 He performed the function of delivering to men the 
revelation of God. 84 The two main ideas of Philo th en with regard to 

the mind that is in us is removed from its place at the arrival of the divine Spirit, 
but is again restored to its previous habitation when that Spirit departs, for it is con- 
trary to holy law for what is mortal to dwell with what is immortal" (Quis Rer. Div. 
52, 53). ''Sometimes having come empty (i. e. to his work of composition) I suddenly 
became full, ideas being invisibly showered upon me and planted from above, so that 
by a divine possession I was filled with enthusiasm, and was absolutely ignorant of the 
place, of those present, of myself, of what was said, of what was written; for I had a 
stream of interpretation, an enjoyment of light, a most keen-sighted vision, a most 
distinct view of the subjects treated, such as would be given through the eyes from 
the clearest exhibition (of some object)" (Migrat. Abr. 7). 

72 See passages cited under note 68. 

73 De Abram. 22; De Gigan. 2. 

74 Opif. Mund. 5, 6, 24: De Somn. I, 21. 

75 Opif. Mund. 41; Monarch. 5; Confus. Ling. 20; Profug. 19; Somn. I, 41. 

76 Quod Deus Immut. 6; Confus. Ling. 14, 28; Agric. Noe 12; Somn. I, 37. 

77 Plant. Noe 5. 

78 Plant. Noe 5; Leg. Alleg. 73. 

79 Somn. I, 37; Profug. 20. 

80 Agric. Noe 12; Somn. I, 39. 

81 Profug. 18. 

82 Leg. AUeg. 73; Somn. I, 39. 

83 Leg. Alleg. 31; Migr. Abr. 1; Cherub. 35; Opif. Mund. 5, 6; et al. 
84 Quis Rer. Div. 42, et al. 



38 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

the Logos were that he was the expression of God's activity in creation 
and the rational principle in the universe and in man on the one hand, 
and the Mediator between God and man and the agent of salvation on 
the other. 

Philo's conception is clearly syncretistic. He unites the Stoic doc- 
trine of the Logos as the active or rational principle in the world with 
the Platonic idea of the supersensual images and patterns of visible 
things. He is doubtless influenced on the other hand by the Jewish 
conception of Wisdom and of the Spirit as well as by the Oriental and 
Gnostic notion of the Deity sending down to the earth His son or vice- 
gerent in order to deliver and save men from contact with the world. 

When we turn to the Wisdom of Solomon, we find that what we have 
learned concerning Philo's doctrine of the Logos, could almost equally 
well be said of Wisdom. Wisdom is the medium through which God 
creates the world and reveals Himself. She emanates from God, is 
immanent in the world, decides upon the destinies of the nations, and 
becomes the moral and religious guide for men. 83 In fact, in one passage 
the Logos and Wisdom are practically identified. 86 Perhaps the rational 
element is not so prominent in Wisdom as in Philo's Logos, the Greek 
influence not so strong, and the process of hypostatization not quite 
so complete, and yet the remarkable similarity between the two con- 
ceptions is very striking to say the least. 

Nor are the conceptions of the Logos and of Wisdom in the minds 
of these writers to be thought of as being essentially different from 
that of the Spirit. So far as their essential constitution and their func- 
tions are concerned, they are practically identical. And in their relation 
to God and to the universe very little distinction can be drawn between 
them. 87 The use of these three terms to denote practically the same 
thing and to express practically the same thought is due perhaps to the 

85 Wis. 9:9; 8:7, 8; 7:22, 24, et al. The passage in 7:25-27 is worth quoting here: 
"For she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure effulgence of the glory of the 
Almighty; therefore can nothing denied enter into her. For she is an effulgence from 
everlasting light, and an unspotted mirror of the working of God, and an image of 
His goodness. And in that she is one she hath power to do all things; and remaining 
in herself, reneweth all things; and in all ages entering into Holy souls she maketh 
them friends of God and prophets. " 

86 Wis. 9:1, 2. 

87 For references on the identification of the Spirit and Wisdom see Wis. 1:4-7; 
7:7, 22, 23; 9:17; 12:1, 2; and Philo, Gigan. 5, 11; Quaes, in Gen. I, 90. For passages 
showing the similarity between the Spirit and the Logos see Philo, Quod Det. Pot. 
22, 23; Opif. Mund. 46; Leg. Alleg. I, 13; Plant. Noe 5; and Volz, op. cit.. p. 1S7. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 39 

fact that the syncretistic elements in these writings were not consistently 
coordinated as well as to the fact that an irenic purpose could thus be 
served: the writers by using these terms and thought-forms could 
make themselves better understood by the persons whom they addressed. 

These concepts of the Logos, Wisdom and the Spirit served a practical 
religious need for the people of that age. For the Hellenistic Jews, 
and particularly for those of their number who were inclined toward 
philosophical speculation they would serve the same purpose as the idea 
of the Messiah served for those interested in Apocalypticism, at least 
so far as the longing for individual redemption was concerned. And 
among the Gentiles in general there was a widespread feeling that there 
was need of a mediator between man and the Deity, a revealer of divine 
gnosis, who should come down from heaven to release the imprisoned 
soul and give it sufficient knowledge to enable it to return safely to 
heaven, its original home. The legends in nearly all the Oriental religions 
of gods or sons of gods who come down from heaven to earth to contend 
with hostile beings or with the evil forces of nature in order to aid man 
in his imprisoned condition confirm the truth of this statement. 

Josephus, though a Hellenistic Jew, adds very little to our knowledge 
of the conceptions which the Jews of the Dispersion held regarding 
spirits. In the main he held to ideas that were also current in Palestine. 
He believed in angels and identified the Angel of Jehovah with Jehovah 
Himself. 88 He recommends exorcism of demons as a sanative measure 
and describes how Solomon invented the science. 89 He regarded pro- 
phecy as the gift of the Spirit and claims that this was one of the gifts 
of the high-priest. 90 He interpreted his own statement made to Vespasian 
when he surrendered to the Romans, viz., that Vespasian would become 
Emperor of Rome, as a prophecy uttered in a state of ecstasy. 91 It 
was at least the means of saving his life and might well be regarded as 
an inspiration. He regarded the Old Testament books as divinely 
inspired and the Law as having been delivered by angels. 92 But there 
are several indications on the other hand that he was somewhat influenced 
by Roman ideas and customs as well. When he has Aristobulus say 
that his soul ought to die to appease the ghosts of his brother and mother 

88 Ant. IV, 6, 2; V, 8, 3. 

89 Ant. VIII, 2, 5; XIII, 16, 2; Wars VII, 6, 3; 9, 1. 

90 Ant. IV, 6, 5; 8, 49; V, 8, 4; VI, 4, 1; 8, 2; VII, 4, 1, X, 11, 3; XIII, 10, 7; 
Wars I, 2, 8; Apion I, 8. 

91 Wars III, 8, 3; 8, 9. 

92 Ant. XIII, 15, 3; Apion I, 8. 



40 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 



whom he had murdered, 93 he doubtless shows an influence of the Roman 
custom of manes- worship upon his mind. There is also a Roman touch 
in the statement which he has Herod make regarding the good Genius 
that was ever present at the elbow of his son Alexander. 94 In the speech 
of Titus to his soldiers in which he says: "For who is there who does 
not know, that those souls of virtuous men which are severed from their 
fleshly bodies in battles by the sword, are received by the ether, that 
purest of elements, and placed among the stars; that they become good 
demons and propitious heroes, and show themselves as such to then- 
posterity afterwards?" 95 we are unable to tell whether Josephus is 
putting a speech into the mouth of Titus or whether the words were 
actually uttered as stated. In any case it reveals Josephus' acquain- 
tance with Greek and Roman conceptions. 

These then are the main features that differentiate the Hellenistic 
from the Palestinian Jews with respect to their belief in spirits: the 
introduction of cosmological speculation into the Apocalyptic program 
and the assigning of a cosmic function to the Spirit, a broader view of 
the inspiration of the Scriptures, a more transcendent conception of 
God and a more complete hypostatization of a mediating agent, a greater 
emphasis upon the individualistic aspect of salvation, and the intro- 
duction of a mystical element in the thought of man's relation to God. 
There is an evident fusion and syncretizing of Jewish, Oriental, and 
Greek thought. 

We will see how these ideas affected the thought-world of the expand- 
ing Christian movement as it entered the Hellenistic and Gentile worlds. 

93 Ant. XIII, 11, 3; Wars I, 3, 6. 

94 Ant. XVI, 7, 4. 
96 Wars VI, 1, 5. 









A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 41 



CHAPTER III 

The Believer as Pneumatikos: The Gifts of the Spirit 

The original disciples of Jesus were disheartened at his death, but 
they nevertheless could not erase from their memories the deep impress 
which his life and teachings had made upon their minds. They still in 
imagination could see him as he preached and healed; and especially 
at times when they met together, a small group of them, in some home 
or by the seaside did they seem to feel his presence near them. At such 
times they would doubtless recount some of the things they had seen 
him do or heard him say. And this would bring into their minds in 
still clearer and more vivid outlines the picture of him whom they had 
come to trust and love. 

Holding to the psychological notions that were current in their day, 
they of course did not distinguish between the external and internal 
reality of mental experiences, and interpreted these vivid impressions 
of their departed teacher to be externally real. They furthermore 
could not think of him as being really dead, for they believed as the 
people of their time did, that the soul continued its existence in spiritual 
form after death. Nor could they think of him as living in the under- 
world, for these visions which they had had of him were proof of the 
fact that Hades could not hold him and that he had actually risen from 
the dead and was still in close fellowship with them. 1 

When by the passing of time these mental impressions gradually 
grew weaker and less distinct, and the visions of the risen Jesus con- 
sequently became less frequent, the question as to where the risen Jesus 
was must have offered itself to the minds of his followers. It was 
natural that since they thought of Jesus as a prophet like unto Moses 
and since they believed that not only Moses but such rare spirits as 
Enoch and Elijah had gone directly to heaven, they should conceive of 
the spirit of Jesus as having undergone a similar exaltation. The 
resurrection of Jesus then came to be regarded as the first necessary 
step to his exaltation to heaven. And this conception of Jesus must 
have been one of the factors that changed the disciples from a band of 
disheartened fishermen to a group of bold and enthusiastic preachers. 
Perhaps already they felt because of this new hope born in them that a 

1 See on the subject of the resurrection-appearances of Jesus Lake, The Histori- 
cal Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, pp. 166-279. 



42 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

portion of the spirit of Jesus had descended upon them, as Elijah's 
also had fallen upon Elisha in years gone by. 

Now there must have taken place at an early stage 2 in the religious 
development of the disciples the identification of this exalted Jesus 
with the Apocalyptic Messiah who was to come from heaven to establish 
his kingdom upon earth. Whether they during Jesus' life upon earth 
came to regard him as the Messiah is open to question; but if they did, 
they certainly did not apply the Apocalyptic conception of the Messiah 
to him. And even now when they did come to identify the heavenly 
Jesus and the Apocalyptic Messiah, they at first may still not have 
regarded the earthly Jesus as having been the Messiah. The ascription 
of Messiahship to his earthly career may have taken place later. But 
however that may be, the fact that now they did think of him as the 
heavenly Messiah soon to come on the clouds to establish his kingdom, 
was an item of supreme significance to them. Imagine what new hope, 
what new enthusiasm, what fervor and joy, what a sense of victory 
must have possessed their hearts at the thought. This must have been 
the stimulus for the outburst of all the emotional instincts of their 
souls. 

How did they explain this new and overpowering experience in their 
hearts? They did it, of course, in the same way in which the people 
of that age explained everything abnormal, strange and inexplicable, 
that is, they attributed it to the Spirit of God. They felt that they 
had come to the last days, when a new order was about to be established 
upon the earth, and they doubtless called to mind the prophecy of 
Joel that in the new age the Spirit would be poured out on all men. 
Thus they identified their experience with the outpouring of the Spirit 
which had been foretold of the Messianic age. And furthermore since 
it was their thought of the heavenly Jesus that was the occasion for this 
new emotional experience, they naturally felt that this Spirit came from 
Jesus. 

But this new conception of the heavenly Jesus stirred them also to 
action. They had to prepare people for the coming of the Messiah and 
they began to preach or prophecy concerning this coming event. It 
was good news; it was gospel. The enthusiasm was infectious. Others 
were stirred by their message and these too ascribed the unaccountably 

2 This must have occurred before cir. 33-35 A. D., for when Paul was converted 
this seems to have been the conception with which he started out on his Christian 
career. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 43 

joyous and abnormal condition of their mind to the operation of the 
Spirit. Then in imitation of what they had seen their Master do they 
began to heal the sick and to cast out demons. They knew that their 
fellow-ccimtiymen used the names of great characters such as Abraham, 
Jacob, Solomon, and Adam, or the names of angels such as Michael and 
Gabriel, when they cast out demons, 3 for they thought that somehow 
the power of the personality resided in the name of the person. So since 
the disciples of Jesus had experienced the power of his personality while 
he was on earth and believed him now to be an angelic being, they 
used his name when they cast out demons and they found out that it 
had a peculiar charm and power over the minds of these mentally 
deranged people supposedly possessed by some demonic being. 

Then persecution came because of their preaching and their exor- 
cism and their agitation. But strange to say their hope of Jesus' com- 
ing in the near future made them bold and they continued to preach in 
the face of opposition. This boldness was something inexplicable and 
strange to men of their education and social status, and it too was ascribed 
to the influence of the Spirit. 

This was no doubt the way in which the idea of the Spirit as being 
the cause for the unexpected and extraordinary experiences of the 
early group of Jewish Christians arose. And the things which they 
regarded as Spirit-operations depended upon their experiences and on 
what in these experiences they considered as being abnormal and super- 
sensuous. We might say then that the first Christians regarded such 
phenomena as visions, prophecy, healing, exorcism, and perhaps glos- 
solalia 4 as activities of the Spirit. 

When Christianity spread among the Hellenistic Jews and entered 
the Gentile world, the preaching of the gospel stirred up a like enthu- 
siasm and emotional experience in the souls of those who gave heed to 
the message. This message concerned itself not only with the idea of 

3 See Heitmiiller, Im Namen Jesu, pp. 176-182. 

4 These phenomena and ecstatic conditions are all characteristic of Palestinian 
Jewish life, though not confined to the Jews. There may be a question as to whether 
glossolalia was found among the Jews, for the distinctive references in late Jewish 
literature to this form of ecstatic utterance are not very numerous. It seems to con- 
nect up more closely with the ravings of the earlier prophets. And yet there is enough 
evidence to show that this peculiar practice prevailed, to an extent at least, among 
the Jews of the Graeco-Roman period as well. Some of the clearest examples are 
the ecstatic utterances of the daughters of Job (Test. Job, 48-50) and the experience 
which Isaiah is said to have had at his martyrdom (Asc. of Is., 6:10-12). It might 
be said that these do not represent real experiences but are mere literary fictions. That 



44 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

the Apocalyptic Messiah which would appeal of course to the Hellen- 
istic Jews and even to many of the Gentiles who were looking and longing 
for a Golden Age to come, but also with the idea of the lordship of 
Jesus over all spiritual beings and forces and with the presentation 
of his function as a dying and rising deity. Salvation was secured by 
calling in the aid of the power resident in the name of this Lord of Spirits, 5 
and immortality was to be gained by a union with the god who had 
died but now was risen and alive. 6 The preaching of such a message 
rilled the hearts of the believers with a new hope, a new sense of triumph, 
and of course the emotional impulses thus aroused caused ecstatic 
conditions to arise. Some were so overcome by their emotions as to 
lose all control of their vocal organs, and all they could do was to give 
vent to their feelings in a stream of incoherent and unintelligible utter- 
ances and sounds. Others had visions and revelations in which they 
believed themselves transported to heaven or heard strange voices from 
the spiritual world. Some were more able to control their feelings and 
retained possession of their rational faculties. These foretold the 
future or brought a message of exhortation and consolation to the other 
believers. Others again, believing that they had acquired a like power 
as their Lord over spirits and demons, cast out the spirits which they 
supposed had taken possession of the sick and demonized. Some 
evinced an unwonted enthusiasm in works of charity and in this way 
expressed what to them was a work of the Spirit. Others displayed 
special ability and skill in interpreting what was in the mind of the 
ecstatic who could not intelligibly express himself, or in discerning 
whether the spirit supposedly inspiring the ecstatic was beneficial or 
harmful to the Christian community. 

So we might say that in general these emotional experiences of the 
early Christians expressed themselves either in act or word, or in visions 
and revelations. And they were of course, in accord with the belief s of the 
age, ascribed to spiritual agency because of their abnormal nature. 

may be true, and yet the authors of these works nevertheless thus betray an acquain- 
tance with a practice that must have prevailed in their day. Other references may- 
be found in Eth. En. 40; Jub. 12:17; IV Ez. 5:22; esp. 14:37 fL; Mar. of Is. 5:14. 
So it is quite possible that the Palestinian Jewish Christians could have had an ex- 
perience of this kind, even if the account in Acts 2 be tinged with the ideas of the 
author and might therefore represent the Gentile rather than the Jewish conception 
of the Spirit in the early Church. 

5 Rom. 10:9; I Cor. 12:3. 

e I Cor. 15:3,4, 22. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 45 

There seems to have been a tendency on the part of some who, Gentiles 
as they were, were not so rigidly monotheistic as the Jews, to ascribe 
these various actions and experiences each to its own spirit or demon. 
At least this is the tendency which Paul seems to be combating when he 
insists in his Corinthian correspondence that all these various operations 
and phenomena were the result of the activity of one and the same Spirit, 
that is, the Spirit of Christ. 7 And it was doubtless due in large part 
to the efforts of Jewish and Hellenistic missionaries among the Gentiles 
that the spiritual activities of the Gentile Christian communities were 
thus unified. 

Our materials for discovering what the early Christians regarded 
as operations of the Spirit are found chiefly in the Pauline letters, in 
the Gospels, in the Acts, and in Revelation. These materials seem 
to reveal rather a sharp distinction between the popular conceptions of 
the Spirit's activity, which Paul and the primitive Christians held in 
common, and the mystical and more speculative notions which mark 
the departure of Paul from the popular ideas and are found mainly in the 
Pauline and Johannine literature. 

The list of activities belonging to the popular notions of the Spirit, 
which we glean from the books of the New Testament, is rather a long 
one though perhaps incomplete. Paul gives several lists in his letters, 
and since they are not equally inclusive and do not coincide to any 
considerable degree, we may infer that he does not mention all the opera- 
tions of the Spirit which prevailed in the churches of his day. 8 By 
combining the lists and deducting those offices and activities that may 
be identified, we have left a fist of about ten which would in the main 
cover the operations mentioned by Paul. They are: apostles, prophets, 
teachers, miracles, healings, helps, governings, discerning of spirits, 
speaking with tongues, and interpretation of tongues. So far as popular 
ideas were concerned, we find both in the Pauline letters outside of 
these lists and in the other New Testament books spirit-activities which 
may be thought not to belong to any one of these ten kinds, such as, for 
example, revelation through dreams and apparitions, the activities of 
angels, the use of inspired Scripture, immunity from harm and danger, 
the use of the curse or anathema, the belief in the heavenly and elemental 
powers, etc., and yet these latter may in the main be coordinated with 
the list of ten, and may be regarded as a part of the thought-world 

7 1 Cor. 12:4ff. 

8 See I Cor. 12:8-10; 12:28-30; Rom. 12:6-8; Eph. 4:11. 



46 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

and experience of the inspired leaders at least, if not of the believers in 
general. 

We notice that of the ten three represent church leaders while the 
remaining seven are spirit-activities, not classes of inspired men. No 
doubt the order in which both the leaders and the activities are given 
represents the relative importance which Paul attached to these offices 
and gifts, those mentioned first being regarded as the most important. 

The apostles stand first in the list and doubtless in the order of 
importance. They were the pioneer organizers and missionaries of the 
Church, who received their right and authority to be called apostles 
at least in part by the fact that they had had visions of the Lord Jesus 
and had the power of performing miracles. 9 Spiritual power was attri- 
buted to them doubtless for two reasons: (1) in the first place they 
preached a message which produced ecstatic conditions in their auditors, 
and so the message and therefore the messengers must have been in- 
spired; 10 (2) in the second place they were conceived of as having been 
sent (airocjTeWeiv) by the Lord Jesus, even as he had been sent by the 
Father. Of course he was the Spirit-filled messenger of the Deity, 11 
and when he gave his disciples authority and power to go out and carry 
on his work, this implied that he imparted unto them this same Spirit- 
power which he himself had possessed. 12 The fact that they were able 
to heal the sick, cast out demons, confound their enemies, and perform 
deeds even greater than those that were wrought by Jesus, was a sign 
that they had this power. 13 

It is thought by some that Paul in his list of spiritual gifts given 
in I Cor. 12:8-10, in which he omits direct mention of apostles, prophets 
and teachers, and seems to substitute in their place the phrases, "the 
word of wisdom," "the word of knowledge," and "faith," thus wishes to 
designate the spiritual endowment or function of each of these three 
classes of leaders; but this can hardly be his intention, for he must 
have thought of all these three classes of workers as possessing these 
gifts in varying degrees, and he surely could not have conceived of them 
whether collectively or individually as the exclusive possession of any 
single one of these classes. Paul as an apostle would have resented any 
implication that he did not, for example, possess the word of gnosis or 

9 1 Cor. 9:1; II Cor. 12:12; I Thes. 1:5; Rom. 15:8; I Cor. 2:4; Acts 1:21 ff. 

"Gal. 3:2, 5. 

"Matthew 10:1; Heb. 3:1; John 17:18. 

12 Mark 6:7, 30; Luke 9:10. 

13 John 14:12 et al. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 47 

intuitive knowledge as well as the word of <ro<pia or knowledge derived 
from discursive thought and reflection, 14 or that he did not have the 
power of faith to perform miraculous deeds. The inspired character 
of the apostle, the feature that distinguished him from the other Christian 
leaders, lay in the fact that he was the delegated messenger from some 
spiritual being or authority and that by his message he was the instru- 
ment of first arousing his hearers to ecstatic conditions, not in his pos- 
session of acxpLa rather than yv&ais or 7tiotis. 15 

Whether Jesus called his disciples apostles can not be definitely 
determined; if he did not do so, they must have been called by that 
title very soon after his death. The inactivity of the disciples for a 
time after his death, though attributed no doubt at a later time to the 
instructions which they had supposedly received from Jesus himself, 
was due to their lack of a feeling of responsibility as apostles or mes- 
sengers. If they had been called apostles by Jesus, they certainly 
did not act when Jesus died as if they felt an apostolic call. It is more 
likely that the name came to be attached to them after they began to 
feel the call to preach the gospel and especially after they began to go 
forth to Antioch and the Gentile world for the purpose of religious 
propaganda. But at any rate the idea of an apostle or prophet as being 
the messenger of God was familiar to both Jew and Greek, and could 
have arisen either in the Palestinian or in the Gentile Church. 

The translators of the Old Testament used the word apostle where 
Abijah is represented as being a messenger to Jeroboam 16 and where 
Isaiah speaks of messengers who were to be sent to Jerusalem from 
Ethiopia. 17 The word in the sense of a messenger was in use in Greece 
as early as Herodotus. 18 There is a passage in Epictetus which perhaps 

14 This is the distinction which Schmiedel makes between yvuxris and <ro<pla (Encyc. 
Bib., Art., "Spiritual Gifts," sec. 6.) 

15 It is clear from Paul's own account of his pneumatic experiences that he could 
have been classed as a prophet and a tongue-speaker as well as an apostle, for he had 
visions and revelations and enjoyed the ecstatic experience of glossolalia (II Cor. 
12:1; I Cor. 14:14, 15, 18). Hence it is a mistake to think that one can ascribe cer- 
tain gifts of the Spirit to a definite class of believers or divide the believers into defi- 
nite classes according to the kind of gift or gifts which they possess. At any rate 
the mention of prophecy in I Cor. 12:10 would preclude the possibility of identi- 
fying prophecy with the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, or faith, given in the 
immediately preceding context. 

16 IKi. 14:6. 
17 Is. 18:1, 2, 7. 
18 Hdt. I, 21; V, 38. 



48 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

throws as much light as any upon the question as to what the Greeks 
and Romans would have conceived a Christian apostle to be. 19 In this 
he speaks of the Cynic preacher as the messenger of Zeus come to inform 
men of their wandering from the right way and of their vain efforts 
to find happiness in any but the Cynic type of life. Apollonius of 
Tyana who went from city to city preaching and instructing the people, 
and who when in Rome visited temple after temple exciting a religious 
revival, might be pointed out as an example as to what conceptions the 
Gentiles would have of an apostle. 20 From the large number of Cynic 
and Stoic preachers who lived and labored in that age we can imagine 
that the sight of a Christian preacher or apostle coming to a city or 
marketplace and delivering his message would have been a familiar 
one to most of the people. The degree of inspiration attributed to him 
and to his message would in a general way correspond to the amount 
of enthusiasm which he could stir up in his hearers and to the kind and 
number of miraculous deeds and signs which he could perform. 21 And 
his message would receive a welcome reception to a large extent in pro- 
portion to the kind and nature of spiritual manifestations that attended 
its delivery. 22 

In both Jewish and Gentile life the prophet occupied a prominent 
place. In chapter two we noticed what an important role the prophet 
played among the Jews. And the same might be said with regard to the 
Gentiles. We know how popular the Greek oracles, such as those at 
Delphi and Dodona, were in ancient times. The Apollo cult in parti- 
cular was largely built up around the idea of prophecy. We know what 
an influence the soothsayers and astrologers wielded not only over the 

19 Epict., Diss., Ill, 22, sec. 23. 

20 Philostr., Apoll. Tyan., IV, 41. 

21 In Acts 14:12 Barnabas and Paul are called gods because they could heal a 
crippled man; and when they call Paul Hermes because he was the chief speaker, 
they reflect the Greek idea of a divine and inspired messenger. Paul and Barnabas 
refuse to accept the ovation not because they did not think of themselves as divine 
messengers or apostles, but because their Jewish aversion to the thought of the deifi- 
cation of man prevented them from doing so. Paul perhaps refers to this incident in 
Gal. 4:14; at least this passage indicates what conception the Galatians had of the 
apostle. 

22 The word, apostle, as has often been pointed out, is used in the New Testament 
in a narrower and a broader sense. The distinction perhaps rests upon the idea that 
the original group of disciples and those who had direct visions of the Lord Jesus were 
more fully equipped with spiritual power than those who, though going by the name 
of apostle and acting as messengers of God, were somewhat farther removed from the 
source of this power. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 49 

popular mind but in government and literary circles as well; and we 
are aware of the large use the Greek generals and the Roman Emperors 
and officials made of men possessed of the gift of divination, especially 
in the conduct of their military expeditions. 23 

The ecstatic condition necessary for the exercise of the prophetic 
gift, though excited very often by external means, was generally regarded 
as being brought on by the action of a demon or god who took possession 
of the prophet. The Pythia of course was supposed to be possessed by 
Apollo. 24 The demon of Socrates, according to Plutarch, 25 brought 
visions to guide the philosopher in his actions, and going before him 
shed a light upon hidden and obscure matters which could not be dis- 
covered by unassisted human understanding. This demon was not a 
divine apparition but a voice; it was Deity speaking to the soul of the 
philosopher. Plutarch is quite firmly convinced that the demons are 
responsible for the oracles, 26 and even where he admits that the exhala- 
tions of certain fumes from the earth cause ecstatic conditions, he asserts 
that the demons have charge of these exhalations. 27 The Deity uses 
the human soul as His instrument as the human soul uses the body; 
and this is the cause of prophecy. 28 He thinks of prophecy as the 
excitation of an inferior soul by the understanding of a superior nature 
and of a more divine soul, the action resembling the way in which speech 
influences and arouses another person. 29 It should be noted however 
that Plutarch did not regard prophecy as a universal gift, but claimed 
that it was limited to those who had the proper qualifications for under- 
standing the instructions of the demons, such as genteel breeding, a 
philosophical education, a governable and obedient temper, a quiet and 
sedate mind, etc. 30 In some of these ideas Plutarch doubtless represents 
the philosophical point of view and yet if he, a philosopher, thought 

23 If Plutarch may be believed, we may see from a statement which he makes 
in his Sentiments Concerning Nature, V, 1, that practically all the philosophers with 
the exception of Xenophanes and Epicurus believed in the art of divination. He says 
that Plato and the Stoics regarded divination as a divine enthusiasm, and that the 
prophetic faculty was an inspiration or an illapse of divine knowledge into man. Pro- 
phecy was possible because the soul was of divine constitution. He also states that 
Pythagoras, Aristotle and Dicaearchus admitted certain forms of divination. 

24 See Rohde, Psyche, II, pp. 60-1. 

25 Disc. Cone. Soc. Dem., 10. 

26 Why the Orac. Cease, 15 & 38. 

27 Op. tit., 40 & 48. 
2 *Op.ciL, 21. 

29 Dis. Cone. Soc. Dem., 20. 
M Op.cit., 21&22. 



50 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

so much of the oracles and of the inspiration of the prophets, how much 
more must the common people have been interested in this element in 
their lives and environment. 

Apollonius of Tyana furnishes us with as good an example as any 
that we can find of what the ancients conceived of as a prophet. He 
was able as the result of divine inspiration to foretell future events such 
as the rebellion of Vindex against Nero, the death of Titus, catastrophes 
such as shipwrecks, etc. He had the power of the seer, for it is reported 
that while at Ephesus he saw the death of Domitian at Rome. He 
was also possessed of supernatural knowledge, for he is said to have 
been able to understand all the languages of men and beasts and to 
read the secret thoughts of men's hearts. The power to perform mir- 
acles was also claimed for him by his followers. 31 Of course much of 
this information is the accretion of a tradition which grew up after 
Apollonius' death, and yet the picture which we here have of him repre- 
sents what the people of that day thought of a prophet. 

Now both Jews and Gentiles who became Christians brought these 
ideas and conceptions of the prophet with them into the Christian circle. 
They believed that either the Spirit of Jesus or the Lord Jesus himself 
would possess them and would enable them to foretell the future and 
to acquire a knowledge of the mysteries of God. Hence it is that in the 
early Christian communities a class of inspired persons called prophets 
arose. These were doubtless found in the Palestinian Christian group 
as well as in the Gentile churches. The four virgin daughters of Philip 
are represented in Acts as being prophetesses, 32 and the activities of a 
certain prophet Agabus are mentioned twice. 33 We are also told that 
there were prophets and teachers in the church at Antioch among whom 
Barnabas and Saul, and later also Judas and Silas, were numbered. 34 
In the Pauline churches the prophet evidently occupied a place next 
to the apostle in importance. When Matthew was written a reward 
was attached to the reception of the prophet's person and message. 35 
The book of Revelation, as well as the Apocalyptic passages in the Gos- 
pels and in Paul, indicates that the Apocalyptic form of prophecy was 

31 See Philostratos' Life of Apollonius. 

32 Acts 21:9. 

33 Acts 11:27 ff.; 21:10 ff. 

34 Acts 13:1 ff.; 15:32: In 27:10 etal. Paul is represented as being able to foretell 
the future. 

35 Matthew 10:41. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 51 

quite prevalent in the churches of the first century. 36 And the Didache 
shows that prophets were still active in the Church near the middle of 
the second century, though the anxiety of the author that the prophets 
be properly cared for would perhaps be an indication that they were 
beginning to suffer from neglect. 37 

The prophet differed from the apostle in that he was no doubt a 
localized as well as an itinerant worker. He was at times a local preacher ; 
yet not a formal officer of the church. He spoke when he felt moved 
by the Spirit. In fact, it is quite probable that all the believers in the 
early Christian communities were given more or less to prophesying, 
and prophecy must have been practically a universal feature of primitive 
church life. 38 

The function of the prophet was the imparting of divine knowledge 
presumably obtained through contact with the Deity or with His Spirit, 
that is, through revelation not through the exercise of the normal rational 
faculties. To get this knowledge either the soul of the prophet was 
elevated to heavenly regions, or else the Deity or His Spirit came down 
and took possession of the prophet's body. 39 This knowledge consisted 
chiefly of things unseen and hence was concerned in the main with the 
future and with the hidden purposes of God. Agabus foretold the 
famine in Judaea as well as the sufferings of Paul in Jerusalem. 40 Paul 
was able to forecast the final history of the Jewish people as well as the 
end of the age. 41 In fact, the whole Apocalyptic movement in the early 
Church was little more than a prophecy concerning the coming of the 
Messiah, the establishing of His kingdom, and the catastrophic events 

36 In I Cor. 14:30, 31 Paul practically identifies prophecy and revelation. 

37 Did. 12:1,3,6,7. 

38 The application which Peter is said to have made of the passage from Joel 
2 :28 ff . to the Pentecostal experience seems to point to a universal practice on the 
part of the early believers; and the statements which Paul makes in such passages 
as I Cor. 14:5, 31 almost lead one to believe that prophecy was a universal gift among 
the Corinthian believers. And yet verses like I Cor. 12:10 and 14:29 clearly show that 
some of the members were accustomed to prophesy while others possessed gifts of a 
different nature. 

39 In the Hermetic Corpus we find two types of revelation: in the one case a god 
or demigod like Hermes, Asklepios, or Thot reveals what he has seen or has had com- 
municated to him by the Supreme Deity or Father, in the other case a man or pro- 
phet reveals what he has found out either through a god dwelling in him called down 
by prayer or through his ascent to heaven with the help of the Deity. See further 
Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 178. 

40 Actsli:28;21:10ff. 

41 Rom. 11:25 ff.; I Cor. 15:23 fif., 51&.; etal. 



52 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

that should precede and attend it. But the prophet also spoke of the 
mysteries of God and of men; to him was revealed the wisdom of God 
which had been hid from ages past, and he could read the secrets of 
men's hearts. 42 The Christians in particular regarded the mystery 
of Jesus' death and resurrection as well as the growing tradition con- 
cerning his earthly career as having been revealed through the agency 
of the Spirit, 43 but these elements in the early Christian message may 
have belonged rather to the function of the apostle than to that of the 
prophet. According to Acts the chief function of the prophet seems to 
have been to foretell the future. With Paul the final object of prophecy 
was to edify and comfort the community of believers as well as to convert 
sinners to repentance. 44 It is not hard to imagine how a message which 
proclaimed the speedy coming of the Deliverer and the assurance of 
immortal life to the believer would not only stir up the emotions of the 
Christian group in general, but would encourage and console those in 
particular who were tired of this world, perhaps were suffering persecu- 
tion, and were longing for a life of bliss in the future. 

When we turn to the psychology of the prophetic experience we 
enter the realm of trance conditions brought on by some strong emotional 
excitation. But it is difficult to tell just how much of the normal con- 
sciousness of the prophet was subdued or overcome. Sometimes the 
prophet remained in control of his will; at other times he was unconscious 
of what he was saying or doing. So there must have been varying 
degrees of emotional excitation and reaction within the limits of those 
phenomena ascribed to the prophetic experience. The Christians 
believed that the highpriest Caiaphas had prophetic power in that he 
foretold the death of Jesus, not merely because he as highpriest was 
supposed to have the gift of prophecy, 45 but because he uttered a state- 
ment, the correct import of which he did not know, and hence was 
unconscious of what he was saying. 46 When the Christian preachers 
were brought before their persecutors, they were not to use their rational 
faculties; the Spirit would speak for them through their lips; they were 
to be passive. 47 In the case of Paul the emotional stimulus was so 
strong and the power of imagination so vivid that when he had his 

42 1 Cor. 2; 14:24 ff.; John 4:18; et at. 
43 1 Cor. 2:2, 4; John 14:26; 16:13. 
44 1 Cor. 14:3, 25. 

45 Jos., Ant., VII, 4, 1; XIII, 10, 7; Wars, I, 2, 8. 

46 John 11:51. 

47 Mark 13:11; Luke 12:12: cf. Luke 21:15. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 53 

visions he was unconscious of the presence of his body. 48 The Apocalyp- 
tist believed that his soul was caught up into heaven while his body 
lay lifeless until the soul returned, 49 or that what he heard was revealed 
to him by an angel; 50 what he wrote was superhuman knowledge and 
could not have been derived from his own powers of mind. And as a 
rule it was thought that the prophet was used by the Spirit merely as 
an instrument through which a divine message might be revealed. The 
thoughts and words of the prophet were really not his own but those 
of the Spirit which had taken temporary possession of him. 

However we are not to think that the prophet always lost control 
of all his faculties. He still retained the power of memory for he could 
remember his vision or revelation sufficiently well to be able to tell 
it to others or to write it down in a book. 51 He still retained control 
of his vocal organs, for what he said was in intelligible language, and 
he himself understood what he was saying. 52 Furthermore, the prophet 
was not so completely under the control of the Spirit that he could not 
refrain from giving his message, for the "spirits of the prophets are 
subject to the prophets, " 53 which is perhaps only another way of saying 
that the prophets were able to check and govern their impulses and 
emotions. 54 

48 II Cor. 12:2, 3. In the Hermetic Corpus, X, 4, we are told that when knowl- 
edge and visions of divine light are attained, the bodily senses are inoperative. The 
initiate is oblivious of all bodily perceptions and movements. The soul is drawn 
out of the body and transformed into obala. 

49 Rev. 1:17; 4:2; et al. 

60 Rev. 1:1; 22:8. Cf. the vision of Timarchus in Plut., Dis. Cone. Soc. Dem., 
21 & 22. 

51 Acts 10:30; Rev. 1:19. See also IV Ez. 14:38 ff. There were doubtless cases 
however where the seer lost consciousness and forgot the content of his vision. 

52 1 Cor. 14:1 ff. See also Chrysostom. Horn. XXIX on I Cor. 12:2, where he 
distinguishes between the soothsayer and prophet by saying that the former was 
possessed by a demon and like a madman was beside himself, while the latter with 
sober mind spoke knowing what he said. 

53 1 Cor. 14:32. 

54 The expressions, "to be filled with the Spirit" (Luke 1:15, 41; Acts 2:4; 4: 8) 
and "to be full of the Spirit" (Luke 4:1; Acts 6:3, 5; 7:55) were used no doubt to 
describe an experience when a man had lost his normal consciousness, that is, his body 
had been preempted of his "I " or self and had become filled with Spirit-fluidum. The 
application of the word, irvevfxaTLKoi, to a certain class of believers (Rom. 15:27; I Cor. 
2:15; 14:37; Gal. 6:1) and the idea of "dividing the Spirit" (Heb. 2:4) would indicate 
not that some of the believers were regarded as lacking altogether the possession of 
the Spirit but that there were grades of Spirit-filled Christians. According to the 
popular conception then, the ecstatic condition in which the subject lost most con- 



54 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

The teacher was also a prominent figure in the Graeco-Roman world. 
Sometimes he was an itinerant preacher, but oftentimes he settled down 
in a place and, gathering a band of students together, established a 
school. 55 Quite frequently he resorted to the written page and 
endeavored to teach the public through his literary activity. One need 
only point to the large number of teachers of philosophy, especially 
Stoics, Cynics, and Sophists, who went about from place to place lec- 
turing and preaching, or establishing schools and writing books, in order 
to realize what a great interest was taken at that time in instruction. 
Many of these teachers of course were simply aiming to tickle the ears 
or fancy of the people so as to gain a livelihood, but it can not be denied 
that some of them were imbued with a deep sense of responsibility to 
bring a moral and religious message to their age. Such for example 
were the Cynics, Demonax and Dion Chrysostom, and the Stoics, 
Seneca and Epictetus. They were more preachers than philosophers. 56 
They dealt, of course, with the usual problems of philosophy, such as 
ontology, cosmology, and epistemology; but they placed by far the 
greater emphasis upon ethics and upon man's relations to the Deity. 

Among the Jews too the teacher played a prominent role. The 
Wisdom movement was essentially a teaching movement. And the 
sage was thought to possess the Spirit. 57 Philo as we have seen was 
conscious of divine inspiration. Teaching was no doubt the main func- 
tion also of the Rabbis. And they too, contrary to our conception of 
them as being dry legalists and given merely to the letter of the Law, 
were at least in many cases regarded by the Jews as inspired persons. 
Hillel, Simeon ben Jochai, Eleasar and Jochanan ben Sakkai were sup- 
posed to have been possessed by the Spirit of God. And Rabbis like 
Ben Asai, Ben Soma, Acher, and Akiba are even said to have had Apo- 
calyptic visions in which their souls were taken up into the heavens. 58 

Teachers appear also in the early Christian communities alongside 
the prophets. They were doubtless to be found in both the Palestinian 



trol of his will and consciousness was the most spiritual; and this may explain why 
tongue-speaking was so popular in the Corinthian Church. Paul's idea of what 
constituted a Spirit-filled man differed somewhat from the popular notion, as we shall 
see, and that is why he placed prophecy above tongues. 

55 The school of Tyrannus (Acts 19:9) was doubtless one of this sort. 

66 See Dill, Rom. Soc. in Time of Nero, Bk. 3, ch. 2. 

"Wis. 9:17. 

68 See Volz, Der Geist Gottes, pp. 99 ff. and 115 ff., and the authorities cited there. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 55 

and Gentile churches. They appear at Antioch, 59 in the Pauline 
churches, 60 and among the readers of the epistle of James. 61 What 
their function was is not stated but may in part be inferred from the 
current notions of the office of the teacher. 62 They doubtless taught 
the gospel and its ethics, and imparted knowledge concerning the words 
and deeds of Jesus. They may also have dealt with the interpretation 
of the Old Testament prophecies and ma} 7 have tried to prove the Mes- 
siahship of Jesus in this way. As the sages and scribes of the Jews 
had to do with the conduct of the people and the interpretation of their 
Scriptures, so this must have been the function of the Christian teachers. 
Since they had no Scriptures of their own but continued to use the 
Jewish Scriptures, it was natural that they should endeavor to interpret 
the latter in the light of their new belief in Jesus' Messiahship. Their 
message appealed more to the rational faculties than the message of 
the prophets, and they were no doubt regarded as less inspirational 
than the latter. Whether we possess the names of any teachers referred 
to in the New Testament is difficult to say; Apollos answers more nearly 
to the conception of a teacher than any other New Testament character. 63 
The two books of Hebrews and James represent doubtless the work of 
Christian teachers. 

The early Christians lived in a time when the people, as we have 
seen, had a dualistic view of the world and peopled the world about them 
with all kinds of spirits, demons, and spiritual powers. These demons 
under the leadership of Satan were antagonistic to God, angels and 

59 Acts 13:1. 

60 1 Cor. 12:28; Rom. 12:7; Eph. 4:11. 

61 Jas. 3:1. The author is here advising against too many becoming teachers 
for there was danger that they would be unable to practise what they taught and would 
subject themselves by their inconsistency to judgment. Nevertheless the passage 
implies that in the circle addressed teaching was very popular. The situation seems 
to have been just the opposite from that depicted in Heb. 5:11 ff. 

62 The passage in Heb. 5:11 ff. may not refer to teachers as a class of leaders in 
the Church, but uses the word teacher in more of a generic and didactic sense. The 
author is endeavoring to stir up his readers to assume a greater responsibility in in- 
structing others. And yet the passage perhaps indicates what the office of the teach- 
er was. He was to instruct the babes, those who were dull of hearing and had not 
the experience of the word of righteousness, in the rudiments or first principles of 
God's oracles, and interpret them so as to enable the pupils to discern between good 
and evil. His concern thus was a matter of ethics. 

63 Acts 18:24 ff., especially vs. 25. The reference to prophrets and teachers in 
the Antiochian church gives names but does not designate what ones are prophets 
and what ones are teachers (Acts 13:1). 



56 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

man, and were responsible for all that was evil and injurious to the 
best interests of mankind. They believed that these evil spirits were 
the cause of disease, insanity, and mental and nervous disorders. They 
were constantly hovering around and endeavoring to inhabit some 
human body, and man was helpless in warding them off unless he pos- 
sessed the power or name of some stronger spirit or Deity. It was 
with such an attitude of mind toward the spiritual world that the people 
of the first century A. D. whether Jew or Gentile joined the Christian 
movement; and bringing these ideas with them, it is quite natural 
that when they became Christians they should resort to exorcism and 
establish that as a part of the cult practices. They believed that Jesus 
had become Lord of the heavenly world and was master of the spiritual 
forces there. If, as we are told, he cast out demons while on earth, 
that was an indication that even during his earthly career he had had 
the mastery over them. Now since the disciples believed that by the 
use of the name of the Deity they could overcome the demons, and 
especially since they as a result of their ecstatic experiences believed 
that they were possessed of the Spirit and power of the heavenly Lord 
Jesus, they began to cast out demons and to heal diseases. The claims 
which they made of possessing this power, and the enthusiasm which 
filled their lives in the first glow of their new faith inspired confidence 
in the insane and nervously disordered who were supposedly possessed 
of demons, and their minds and bodies were restored to normal condi- 
tions. 64 

But the early Christians did not believe that the activity of evil 
spirits was confined simply to diseases and mental disorders. They 
felt that the demons and especially Satan, their Prince, were active in 
their opposition to the Christian movement and that this opposition 
took in the main the form of leading the Christians into temptation, 

64 It should be noted that not much is said about exorcism in the New Testament 
books themselves. Outside of the Marcan narrative and several references in Acts 
(5:16; 16:18; 19:12) very little mention is made of casting out demons. Paul is re- 
markably silent on the subject of exorcism in his letters. The word, "miracles." 
in I Cor. 12:10, 28 doubtless includes the idea of exorcism, especially since it stands 
in juxtaposition with "healings, " a distinction which Mark also makes; yet it might 
also include such practices as the raising of the dead or the contravening of the powers 
of nature. It should be noticed also that the Fourth Gospel fails to give a single 
instance of Jesus' healing a demonized person. But in spite of this silence we are 
justified, on the ground of what little evidence we do find in the New Testament 
and especially on the ground of the extensive practice of exorcism in the Church of the 
second century as indicated in the Christian literature of the time, in concluding that the 
practice was more or less general among the Christians even in the first century. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 57 

of causing false teachers to arise, and of arousing in men and rulers a 
spirit of persecution against the Christians. 65 Satan not only tempted 
Jesus but he desired to lead Peter astray. 66 They that sin or give way 
to temptation are regarded as children of the devil. 67 Satan filled 
Ananias' heart to do wrong. 68 Christians were to protect themselves 
from the wily attempts of the devil to lead them into error and sin; 
in fact, according to Paul's notion the real struggle of a Christian to 
remain loyal in faith and to keep from sin was not with his earthly 
enemies but with the spiritual forces of the heavenly places, the prin- 
cipalities, the powers, the world-rulers of this darkness, the spiritual 
hosts of wickedness. 69 It was Mammon that was enticing people to 
avarice, and the demons were at work tempting the Christians, that is, 
the Gentile Christians, to eat meat that had been sacrificed to them. 70 
It was in this way that the Christians explained the cause for any of 
their number falling away from or below the standards of the cult. Of 
course, they were confident that the power of God in them was able to 
overcome all temptation, 71 yet it was necessary for them to be constantly 
on the watch lest these demonic forces lead them into sin. 72 

The same explanation was given to the rise of false teaching. Sor- 
cery and exorcism unless practised by Christians was wrong and was 
the work of Satan, a method by which he was deceiving the world. 73 
Satan was responsible for the tares and he was the father of lies. 74 False 
apostles were the ministers of Satan and like him tried to fly under 
false colors. 75 Those Docetic teachers who denied the humanity of 

65 See especially Weinel, Die Wirkungen des Geistes u.s.w., pp. 4 ff. 

66 Mark 1:13; Luke 22:31. 
67 1 John 3:8. 

68 Acts 5:3. 
69 Eph. 6:10 ff. 

70 Rev. 2:14, 20; I Cor. 10:20; Acts 15:20; Matthew 6:24. 

71 1 Cor. 10:13; I John 5:18, 19. See further on Satan as tempter I Thes. 3:5; 
I Cor. 7:5; I Tim. 5:14, 15; I Pet. 5:8. 

72 Mark 14:38. 

73 Acts 13:10; Rev. 9:21; 13:14; 18:23. The narrative in Acts 19:13 ff. was intro- 
duced to show the danger resulting from the use of the name of Jesus except by his 
own followers. Mark 9:38 and Luke 9:49 give an instance in which a man, not a 
follower of Jesus, was casting out demons in his name. This may be regarded as an 
exceptional case only in the sense that the New Testament writers mention no other. 
Matthew conspicuously omits it. It is probable that others used the name of Jesus 
in exorcising demons, but the Christians endeavored of course to prohibit the prac- 
tice and to limit it to the members of the cult. 

74 Matthew 13:39; John 8:44. 
76 II Cor. 11:14, 15. 



58 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Christ were anti-Christs and were under the influence of the Deceiver. 76 
As a rule all heterodoxy or teaching that was thought to endanger 
the best interests of the cult was attributed to Satanic origin. 77 

And of course the forces that opposed the Christians and caused 
the members of the cult to suffer were inspired by demonic power. 
Jesus' death in the first instance was due to the work of Satan in Judas' 
heart. 78 And when once the death of Jesus came to be recognized as 
a necessary part of the Messianic program, the mere suggestion that he 
should not have given himself up to death was Satanic. 79 The Jews 
who opposed the movement supposedly from the beginning were regarded 
in the Johannine circle as the children of the devil. 80 The world whose 
Prince was Satan hated the followers of Jesus and persecuted them. 81 
Satan hindered Paul in his work of Christian propaganda. 82 The 
sufferings of the Christians whom the author of I Peter addressed were 
ascribed to the agency of the devil. 83 The whole message of the book 
of Revelation is directed toward comforting and encouraging Christian 
communities who were being persecuted by the Roman authorities, 
and it is noteworthy how the author conceives of the Beast or Roman 
State as being under the influence of the dragon or Satan, and of Babylon 
or Rome as being the habitation of demons. 84 In the author's mind the 
Christian program involved the conflict of two opposing spiritual king- 
doms, on the one side Jesus the Lord of lords with his hosts of angels, 
on the other Satan with his hosts of demons, the conflict of course to 
issue triumphantly for the former. 

When one then considers the large place which the demons occupied 
in the thought-world of the early Christians, one can realize what impor- 
tance they would attach to the practice of exorcism. It was in the use 
of this art that they showed not only that they had power to heal the sick 
and the demonized, but that they could overcome all the demonic forces 
which opposed them and caused them to suffer. Even if they were 
not yet completely triumphant over their enemies, the time would soon 

76 II John 7 & 8. 

77 1 Tim. 4:1, 2; II Tim. 2:26; Jas. 3:15; I John 2:22; Rev. 2:9, 13, 14, 24. 

78 John 6:70; 13:2, 27. 

"Mark 8:33; Matthew 16:23. 

80 John 8:44. 

81 John 14:30; 15:18-25; 17:14. 
82 IThes. 2:18. 

83 1 Pet. 5:8, 9. In II Cor. 12:7; Rev. 2:10 the suffering ascribed to Satanic 
origin is thought of as serving ultimately a good purpose. 
84 Rev. 13:1 ff .; 18:2. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 59 

come when by the help of the spiritual hosts of heaven they would win 
the victory. 85 

When Paul speaks of miracles as one of the gifts of the Spirit, he 
doubtless has in mind this power of casting out demons; or at least in 
his opinion this practice constituted one of the main elements of the 
evepyriiJLaTa dwapeuv. With reference to the healings which Paul places 
next on his list of gifts it should merely be noted that they were of the 
same general nature as the dwafieis, and were a part of the life and prac- 
tices of that age. The Jewish Christians were acquainted with the 
healing practices of their prophets, and the Gentile Christians were 
familiar with the healing cults of Greece such as the cults of Asklepios 
and Dionysos, and with the popular practice of incubation. Some 
of their philosophers also were reported to have had the gift of healing 
the sick and of raising the dead, as for instance the life of Apollonius 
of Tyana indicates. Kings too were commonly thought to possess 
healing virtues. 86 Brought up in the midst of such a thought- world, 
what else could we have expected the early Christians to do, particularly 
in view of the fact that their new emotional experiences led them to 
believe that they possessed the power of Deity, except to practise the 
art of healing? 

The helps to which Paul refers in his Corinthian list of gifts should 
doubtless be interpreted as referring to the charitable work of the be- 
lievers. At least the avTLXrj/juf/eLs of I Cor. 12:28 should, it seems, be 
identified with the work of the 6 fxeradidovs of Rom. 12:8. If this is the 
case, then the question arises as to why the work of charity was num- 

85 Although Minucius Felix comes a little later than the New Testament period, 
his statement in Octavius, ch. 27, in a way sums up the early Christian idea with 
respect to demons, and is worth quoting at length: "Thus these impure spirits or 
demons, as shown by the magi, by the philosophers and by Plato, are concealed . . . 
in statues and images, and by their afflatus obtain the authority as of a present deity 
when at times they inspire priests, inhabit temples, occasionally animate the filaments 
of entrails, govern the flight of birds, guide the falling of lots, give oracles enveloped 
in many falsehoods, . . . also creeping secretly into (men's) bodies as thin spirits 
they feign diseases, terrify minds, distort limbs, in order to compel men to their wor- 
ship; so that fattening on the steam of altars or their offered victims from the flocks, 
they may seem to have cured the ailments which they had constrained. And there 
are the madmen whom ye see rush forth into public places; and the very priests with- 
out the temple thus go mad, thus rave, thus whirl about, ... All these things most of 
you know, how the very demons confess of themselves so often as they are expelled 
by us from the patients' bodies with torments of words and fires of prayer. Saturn 
himself, and Serapis, and Jupiter (the Christians regarded the deities of other cults 
as demons) and whatsoever demons ye worship, overcome by pain, declare what they 



60 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

bered among the gifts of the Spirit. The answer lies partly in the high 
estimation which was put upon almsgiving particularly by the Jews, 
and partly in the experience of the Christians themselves. The book 
of Tobit, to cite only one example, shows what value the Jews of the 
Graeco-Roman period attached to almsgiving. It ranked with prayer 
as a means of communion with the Deity. Now when the Christian 
movement began with its Apocalyptic message of the near approach of 
the Kingdom and with its message of brotherly love, there seems to have 
been stirred up an unwonted activity in works of charity. There was 
little need to keep possession of property in view of the imminent expec- 
tation of the Parousia; it was better to lay up treasures in heaven by 
giving the property to the poor. 87 The love of the brethren too must 
have acted as a powerful influence in the direction of the unselfish dis- 
tribution of goods. Doubtless the author of Acts was correct when 
he wrote that "not one of them said that aught of the things which he 
possessed was his own." 88 It is interesting to note in this connection 
that the sin of Ananias and Sapphira in withholding a part of the property 
which they supposedly had devoted to the Christian cause was a sin 
against the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was evidently connected 
with this charity movement. 89 In the Pauline churches too appeals 
must have been made for an expression of almsgiving. We know of 
one that Paul made himself to the Galatian, Macedonian, and Achaian 
churches, 90 and he doubtless received in the main a hearty response. 



are; nor surely do they lie concerning their iniquity, above all when several of you 
are present. Believe these witnesses who confess the truth of themselves, that they 
are demons. For adjured by the true and only God they shudder reluctant in the 
wretched bodies, and either issue forth at once or vanish gradually according as the 
faith of the patient aids or the grace of the curer favors." 

86 Pausanias, Periegesis, II, 26 f., tells of the miracles of Asklepios. And there 
is a very interesting case of the cure of a young man by Asklepios recorded in the Oxyrr. 
Pap., 1381, just recently published by Grenfell and Hunt. For the cures wrought by 
Apollonius see his life by Philostratos. Suetonius, Vesp., 7, gives instances of Ves- 
pasian's healing the sick in the temple of Serapis at Alexandria. It might be noted 
also that Serapis was the Egyptian god of healing. In Lucian, Philopseudes, ch. 11, 
a case of miraculous healing occurs. On this subject see further Bousset, Kyrios 
Christos, pp. 72 ff., and Weinreich, Antike Heilungswunder. 

87 Matthew 6:4, 19 ff.; Acts 2:45. 

88 Acts 4:32. 

89 Acts 5:1 ff. The selection of men who were full of the Spirit to carry on the 
distribution of the charity funds among the Hellenistic Christians in Jerusalem would 
tend to show the same connection (Acts 6:1-6). 

90 Rom. 15:25 ff.; I Cor. 16:1 ff.; II Cor. 8 & 9. The house of Stephanas (I Cor. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 61 

The amount collected was at least sufficient for him to make a trip 
to Jerusalem at the risk of his life. The deep concern and anxiety which 
he evidently felt for uniting the Jewish and Gentile churches and the 
adoption of alms as a method of strengthening this union indicate the 
value which he attached to this form of Christian activity. 

Now knowing that the ancients always ascribed anything extra- 
ordinary or unusual to spiritual agencies, we can readily see how the 
unwonted sharing of property in the Palestinian churches and the perhaps 
unprecedented spectacle of Gentiles giving alms to the Jews would 
impress the minds of the Christians as being a work of the Spirit of God. 
Furthermore, Paul regarded giving as a grace, a grace which he claimed 
Jesus also possessed, 91 and as a means of stimulating the spiritual life 
of the recipients and of uniting the giver and the beneficiary more 
closely together. 92 It was for these reasons that helps were reckoned 
among the gifts of the Spirit by the early Christians. 93 

What Paul meant by the gift of governings (/cu/Sepi^o-eis) is not 
denned by him, but we may infer that it has the same significance as 
the 6 irpdlcTaixwos mentioned in the letter to the Romans. 94 One should 
however be careful not to confound the idea of governing which Paul 
has in mind here with the work of political rulers, for according to the 
conceptions of the Christians the gifts of the Spirit were confined to 
members of the cult and could hardly be regarded as the possession of 
civil rulers. Governings, or "he that ruleth" then must refer to officers 
in the Church, not to officers in the State. 

It is not difficult to see how the exigencies of the cult and the example 
which the Christians had set before them of the apx^vvdyooyou of the Jew- 
ish synagogues and pagan cults 95 would cause officials of this kind to 
become a part of the new religion. Just as in the synagogue the need 
was felt for some one to keep order, to conduct the public worship or 
to find some one to conduct it, and to care for the synagogue building, 

16:15, 16) seem to have been members of the Corinthian church who possessed the 
spiritual gift of helps. 

91 II Cor. 8:7-9. 

92 II Cor. 9:12 ff. 

93 The author of I Peter evidently regarded hospitality as a gift of the Spirit 
and the helps might very well have included this grace (4:9, 10). 

94 1 Cor. 12:28; Rom. 12:8. 

95 It should be noticed that according to Eus., H. E., 7, 10,4, the word, apx^vva- 
yuyos, was used in connection with the worship of pagan cults. However it is more 
likely that the priests or the magistrates were the real ruling body in the pagan systems. 



62 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

so it became necessary in the Christian communities especially after 
they separated from the Jewish congregations to have a similar official 
in each local group of believers. He directed the affairs of the wor- 
shipping congregation, 96 arranged for the place and time of meetings, 
perhaps conducted at times the public worship, but evidently did not 
do the preaching and exhorting, for that must have been the task of the 
prophets and teachers. In the Corinthian church the officer in charge 
doubtless was unable to preserve proper order in the face of the 
spontaneity in which the worship was carried on. And it was against 
this disorder that Paul directed his instructions in the twelfth to the 
fourteenth chapters of our I Corinthians. 

It may at first sight not be very clear why an office of this kind should 
have been numbered among the spiritual gifts, and yet the reason may 
not be very difficult to find. It seems evident that although the ruler of the 
Christian group may not have been chosen by formal appointment, he 
must have been selected by general agreement at least on account of 
special administrative ability, of the possession of which he had given 
some evidence. This may very well have been an innate faculty, but 
to the people of that day the mere fact that he possessed a talent which 
was unusual and not the common possession of the whole group would 
mean that this special gift was due to the presence and working of the 
Spirit. When we further take into account the fact that the success 
of the Christian movement in its early stages was to no inconsiderable 
extent due to the wisdom with which the leaders conducted the business 
of the Church, we may realize that the tendency would surely be to reckon 
a talent of this kind, which worked for the best interests of the cult 
among the activities of the Spirit. 97 

With the rise of the ethical movement and the consequent classifica- 
tion of spirits into two groups: good and evil ones, it became necessary 
for the people of the Graeco-Roman period to be able to differentiate 
between the two classes. If a man had a bad " genius" as well as a good 
one in attendance upon him at all times, it was quite important that he 
should be able to tell which one of the two was speaking to him. The 
matter was no doubt solved either on the grounds of expediency or 
according to the standards of the moral conscience, and in case of doubt 
the decision was often made by the consulting of some oracle, for after 
all a matter involving the judging of spirits could be determined only by 

96 Kvfiepvrjais originally meant the piloting of a ship. 

97 The v-K-qpkrai must have been regarded also as persons possessed of the Spirit .. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 63 

those who were familiar with spirits and were demon-possessed. The 
spiritual alone were able to judge spiritual things. 

Among the Jews the discerning of spirits was connected chiefly 
with the prophetic message. The question for decision was whether the 
prophet was telling the truth, and the answer was not always forthcom- 
ing. In fact it sometimes remained undetermined until the course of 
events had proved whether or not the prophet had spoken aright. The 
criterion by which the prophet was judged was usually a national or 
patriotic one, the question as to the truth or falsity of his message 
depending upon its being for the best interests or for the disadvantage 
of the Jewish people. And of course if his message proved to be disas- 
trous to the nation he was possessed by a false or lying spirit. Later when 
personal moral purity was stressed, the criterion was based on moral 
grounds, and whatever worked for the injury and moral defilement of 
men was judged to be due to the agency of evil spirits, and vice versa. 

When the Christian movement began, the need for the discerning 
of good and evil spirits soon made itself felt. It made itself felt just 
as soon as the believers became conscious of spiritual endowment and 
ascribed their utterances to the agency of the Spirit of God. 98 The 
matter of deciding whether a man was possessed by an evil or a good 
spirit was not an easy task, for the outward manifestations of their 
operations were quite alike." It required more than human power and 
insight to differentiate, and hence the one who had this power was 
considered as being possessed by the Spirit. And this doubtless explains 
why Paul places the discerning of spirits in his list of gifts. 100 

The Christians seem to have had several criteria by which they 
could test the spirits. The test of power was no doubt applied in some 
Christian communities perhaps at a very early stage of the movement, 

(Acts 13:5). Mark, Timothy, Titus, and a group of similar workers would represent 
this class. And a large part of their work was doubtless the directing of the adminis- 
trative affairs of the movement. Nevertheless the u^per^s can scarcely be identi- 
fied with the 6 ■wpo'LcrTanevos, for the former was an itinerant officer and directed affairs 
according to the will of a superior authority, while the latter was local and must have 
had greater freedom of action and privilege of self-initiative. 

98 The author of Acts starts the Christian movement with the preaching of a 
sermon by Peter at Pentecost, in which he gives his interpretation as to the nature 
of the spirit that possessed the believers on that occasion. 

99 See Gunkel, Die Wirkungen u.s.w., pp. 35 fL, for a presentation of the simi- 
larities between the workings of the demons and those of the Spirit of God. 

100 Cf. I Cor. 2:6-16 where Paul expresses the idea that spiritual things can only 
be judged by those who have the Spirit of God. 



64 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

and the one who could cast out demons had the Spirit of God. 101 It 
was thought too that the demons could be recognized by their unclean 
nature, their connection with sorrow and sickness, and their working 
of injury to men. 102 Paul claimed that if a man anathematized Jesus, 
that was a sign that he was possessed of an evil spirit; but if on the other 
hand he acknowledged the lordship of Jesus, this fact would indicate 
his possession of the Holy Spirit. 103 The attitude which a man took 
toward the personality of Jesus became also the test in other circles. 
According to Mark acknowledgment of the fact that Jesus was possessed 
of the Holy Spirit and not by a demon separated the Christians from 
the Jews. 104 The use of the name of Jesus in the performance of miracles 
may have been a criterion in some places, perhaps among Jewish Chris- 
tians. 105 The Johannine test was the acknowledgment either of the 
divine sonship of Jesus or of the reality of his human body. 106 But 
in truth none of these criteria was absolute and adequate, for false 
teachers and prophets arose who claimed allegiance to Christ and made 
use of the name of Jesus. 107 The real test of a Spirit-filled man was 
whether his life and utterances were making for the best interests of 
the cult and whether his character and conduct were in accord with 
the Christian moral ideals. "By their fruits shall ye know them. " 108 

101 II Thes. 2:8; Mark 6:6; Acts 5:16. 

102 Matthew 15:22; 17:15; Luke 6:18; Acts 10:38. 

103 1 Cor. 12:3. It might be noted in this connection that Paul went beyond 
this popular standard and insisted also that a man's life or character was the test 
by which his possession of the Spirit could be determined (Gal. 5:16fL). This test 
is also found in Hermas, Mand., 11, and Did. 11:8. One might also say that the idea 
of some of the Greek philosophers, particularly of Plutarch, that the demons would not 
take up their abode in a man's soul unless he had certain moral and intellectual quali- 
fications, resembles this Pauline test of character. 

104 Mark 3:24 ff. The importance which was attached to the discerning of spirits 
by the Marcan circle of Christians may be seen in the fact that a failure to recognize 
the good spirit in Jesus was thought to involve a man in an eternal and unpardonable 
sin. 

105 Matthew 7:15, 22; 24:24. 
"» I John 2:18 ff.; 4:1, 2. 

107 II Cor. 11:13, 14; I Tim. 4:1; Rev. 2:20; II Pet. 2:1; Matthew 7:15, 22. 

108 Notice Gunkel's statement regarding the early Christian conception of the oper- 
ations of the Spirit: "The operations of the Spirit are those mysterious and powerful 
operations in the realm of human life which stand in some relation to the life of the 
Christian community, which work no harm to men, which occur often by an express 
naming of God's or Christ's name, and in all cases befall only such men as are not 
unworthy of union with God" (Die Wirkungen u.s.w., p. 43). According to this 
view the operations of the Spirit were limited to men of certain moral and religious 
qualifications. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 65 

Of course, one has to admit that in the case of the glossolalia in the 
Corinthian church the activity of the Spirit was judged not from its 
ethical content but from its emotional stimulation and satisfaction. 
But as a rule throughout the New Testament there is more or less of a 
moral element attached to the activity of the Spirit in the Christian 
community. This is the case even in Acts where the powerful and 
mysterious and emotional aspects of the Spirit stand out so prominently. 109 

The discerner of spirits must then have been quite an important 
functionary in the primitive Church. The oft-repeated injunction that 
false prophets and teachers be rejected is an indication of the signifi- 
cance that was attached to the ability to tell whether the teachers and 
prophets of the Church were under the inspiration of a good or evil 
spirit. The discerner of spirits may in a sense be regarded as the first 
of the race of inquisitors that have been guarding the orthodoxy of the 
Church from the beginning of her history to the present day. 

We have already referred to the gift of tongues among the Jews and 
Jewish Christians, 110 and this must have been a characteristic feature 
of the life of the early Gentile Christians as well. In the Gentile 
churches it had its roots in the practices of some of the Greek pagan 
cults of which the Christians had doubtless formerly been devotees. 
The raving and shrieking with which the Pythia uttered her oracles 
was widely known, 111 and Greek literature is abundant in its references 
to the Bacchic frenzy of the Dionysos worshipper. 112 The names, 
Bacchos and Iacchos, by which Dionysos was frequently called, are 
thought to have had their origin in the unintelligible ecstatic utterances 
of the devotees while they were in a state of frenzy; 113 they were either 
cries used to stir up emotion, or were themselves the expression of such 
intense emotion that articulate speech was impossible. Our word, 
hallelujah, perhaps had a similar origin. 

In early times these frenzied states were brought on by some external 
means such as the eating of drugs or herbs, the inhaling of gases, and 

109 Acts 2:43-47; 5:1 ff.; 15:9; et al. 

110 See p. 43, n. 4 above. 

111 Paus. IV, 27, 2; Xen., Mem., I, 1, 9. 

112 See for example Plutarch, Why the Orac. Cease, 14, where he rather unsym- 
pathetically describes the mad ravings, the yells, the loud din, the tossing of the neck 
to and fro, which accompanied on Orphic festival. Rohde, Psyche, II, pp. 11-21, 
gives further refeiences on the Dionysiac ecstasy. 

113 See Harrison, Prolegomena, p. 414. 



66 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

the drinking of wine. But in New Testament times the ecstasy was 
often produced through some emotional excitement, such as when by 
the performance of some ritual the devotee came to have a sense of union 
with the Deity. The new emotion which so overpowered him as to 
make him resemble a mad man, was interpreted to mean that the Deity 
had taken possession of him. There was a new entity in him which 
had not been there before. 

Now when the Gentiles with such a background became Christians, 
heard the Christian message of union with Christ and hope of immortal- 
ity, and partook of the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, a like 
raving and ecstasy seized them; and in the intensity of their emotions 
they gave vent also to inarticulate cries and yells. These must have 
brought them a great deal of relief and satisfaction, but because of their 
unintelligibility were of no benefit to any one but to those who indulged. 
And of course since this surging up and outburst of emotion was so 
unusual and abnormal, it was traced to a supernatural and superhuman 
cause. It was due to the presence of the god Christ or of his Spirit in 
their hearts and was hence to be regarded as a gift of the Spirit. 

The psychology of glossolalia differs very little from that of prophecy. 
The main difference is that in the former the emotion is stronger and 
the normal consciousness is more completely subdued. 114 In prophecy 
the vocal organs are under control but in glossolalia the speech-centers 
are so excited as to make the utterance nothing but a succession of 
inarticulate sounds. The bodily movements that accompanied the 
speech were such as to suggest to the uninitiated that the subject was 
either mad or intoxicated. 115 The impression which the ecstatic himself 
received of his experience was that his self or ego had become supplanted 
by a spiritual entity that entered his body in its stead. The under- 
standing or vovs was regarded as absent. 116 A statement made by Philo 
illustrates this point: "If a yearning come upon thee to participate in 
divine blessedness . . . escape from thyself and go out of thyself in a 

114 The close relation between prophecy and the Dionysiac ecstasy may be in- 
ferred from a statement in Euripides (Bacch., 298 ff.): 

"A prophet is this god (Dionysos) for Bacchic rage 
And madness hold large gift of prohecy; 
And when the god in power enters the body, 
He makes the frantic tell what is to be. " 

115 1 Cor. 14:23; Acts 2:15. 

116 1 Cor. 14:13, 14. 






A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 67 

Bacchic frenzy, divinely inspired like those who are possessed and filled 
with Korybantic delirium. " 117 

The speaking with tongues seems to have been the favorite gift 
among the Corinthian believers, and so far as Paul's own personal 
preference and satisfaction was concerned he esteemed this gift very 
highly himself, 118 in several passages going so far as practically to identify 
glossolalia with irvevfiaTLKa. 119 According to popular notions this was 
evidently the most characteristic gift of the Spirit, doubtless because 
of its strikingly abnormal features. But after all it was not of very great 
value to the propagation and upbuilding of the cult and Paul makes an 
effort to regulate its excesses and places a greater stress upon the purpose- 
ful and intelligible message of the prophet. This may have been the 
reason for his placing tongues near the end of his list of gifts. Partly 
perhaps through Paul's influence and partly because of its highly emo- 
tional features this practice soon fell into disuse and disappeared almost 
entirely in the course of the second century. 120 

It became necessary, in view of the fact that the speaking in tongues 
was unintelligible, that the utterances be interpreted if others wished 
to know their meaning. And this too was regarded as a gift of the Spirit, 
for it was impossible for any but a Spirit-possessed man to understand 
and judge spiritual things, and this was a task that required more than 
human knowledge. This power of interpretation was a rare gift and 

117 Quis Rer. Div. Her., 69. 

118 1 Cor. 14:18; II Thes. 2:2. In the latter passage Paul doubtless refers to 
his use of tongues in the Thessalonian church. 

119 1 Cor. 14:1, 37. But in I Cor. 2:15; 3:1 he uses TrvevixariKos in a more general 
sense. 

120 The Montanists seem to have revived the practice. Iienaeus (Haer. V, 6, 1) 
knows of the custom in the Church but perhaps only as a matter of past history. 
It is thought that since the author of Acts confuses the glossolalia with speaking in 
foreign languages (2:6), the practice had disappeared by his time, but the fact that 
in other places he records the phenomenon in the usual way (10:46; 19:6) would indi- 
cate that he knew what the practice was, though it may have been also merely from 
literary sources. The change in the Pentecostal tongue-speaking was made not 
because of the author's ignorance but because he wanted to make the Pentecostal 
experience analogous to the occasion of the giving of the Law at Sinai when, according 
to a midrash (Philo, De Decal., 11; Sep ten., 22), all the nations of the world heard 
God's voice in their own language. The reference to tongues in Mark 16:17 would 
point to the fact that this gift was still in use in the Church when the Marcan appen- 
dix was added. For descriptions of glossolalia see Lake, Earlier Epis. of Paul, pp. 242 
ff.; Weinel, Die Wirkungen u.s.w., pp. 72 ff.; and Mosiman, Das Zungenreden. 
Reasons for regarding the Pentecostal experience as glossolalia will be found in Schmie- 
del, Encyc. Bib., Art., "Spiritual Gifts," sees. 9 and 10. 



68 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

had to have a spiritual cause to account for its existence. How this 
interpretation was done we do not know. In some instances the tongue- 
speaker became his own interpreter, 121 just as the Apocalyptic seer 
related or wrote down his visions after he had recovered from his ecstatic 
state. But in other cases there were men who interpreted the utterances 
of others, 122 and it is difficult to understand how this could have been 
done unless there were in use certain formulae and codes of ejaculations 
known to certain members of the group, or unless the interpreter could 
by sympathetic telepathy read the emotions and thoughts of the tongue- 
speaker from the gestures and sounds which he made. It is possible 
that the interpreter himself was a tongue-speaker and could tell from 
experience what the utterances of his fellow-ecstatic signified. 

The above phenomena were the chief ones that characterized the 
pneumatic life of the early Christian groups of believers, and they must 
have been a common feature of the religious activities and practices in 
the various communities where the new religion had taken root. They 
were a part not only of the experience of the Gentile believers among 
whom they must have been particularly prevalent, but of the Jewish 
Christians as well, and especially of the Hellenistic Christians who were 
more or less acquainted and in touch with Gentile notions of spirits and 
demons. And they likewise constituted a feature in the life not only 
of the Pauline churches but so far as we know of all the other Christian 
circles and groups. And since, as we have seen, they contain so many 
elements derived from or similar to the ordinary notions of Spirit- 
activity, they have been commonly termed the popular conceptions of 
the Spirit, as distinguished from the mystical and more speculative ideas 
such as we find in the Pauline and Johannine writings. 

Paul had a prominent mystical strain in his character. This was 
due in part no doubt to his native or innate temper of mind, but in 
part also, and perhaps chiefly, to his training and environment. For 
the Jews as a rule were not mystics, and Paul must have acquired his 
mystical tendencies more from his Gentile contacts than from heredity. 
As a young man he lived in the midst of a civilization that was shot 
through with ideas and beliefs concerning the mystical union of man with 
the Deity. Cilicia was located just between Phrygia, the center of the 
Cybele-Attis cult, and Syria, the home of the worship of Adonis; and 
the influence of these cults must have been felt in Tarsus in his day. 
The worship of Mithras, according to Plutarch, was in Tarsus as early 

121 1 Cor. 14:13. 

122 1 Cor. 12:10: 14:26. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 69 

as 63 B. C. 123 And Paul may very well have become acquainted even 
in his youth with the type of thought represented in the so-called " Mith- 
rasliturgy " and the Hermetic Corpus, writings which were highly mystical 
and saturated with the ideas of rebirth and deification. 124 It was no 
doubt this Oriental mysticism that formed the background for his 
peculiar conception of the indwelling Spirit. 125 

But whatever conception we may have as to the relation of this 
background to Paul's notion of the Spirit, we dare not forget that the 
immediate source of his idea of the Spirit comes from his Christian 
experience. The real roots of his conception are to be found in his own 
experience; the terminology by which he interpreted and expressed this 
experience to others was derived from the usages of the day, terms of 
expression with which not only his readers but he himself must have 
been familiar. And it is to be presumed that since he did not define 
these terms to his readers, he must have expected them to convey to 
their minds the same ideas and connotations as they conveyed to his. 
Hence he would not think of his experience as being essentially different 
from that of his readers, or different from experiences with which his 
readers at least were acquainted. It is evident that when he uses such 
terms as "new creature, " " to be in the Spirit, " etc., he takes for granted 
that his readers understand without explanation what these terms 
signify. Since they were chiefly Gentiles to whom he wrote, and would 
put into these terms such connotations as were currently held, there is 
therefore no reason for thinking that Paul used them with a sense that 
differed very much from current usage among the Gentiles. 126 

We should deal here with the experience which lay at the bottom 
of Paul's idea of the indwelling Spirit. His consciousness of the presence 
of the Spirit in his life began of course with his Christian life. And 

123 Plut., Pompey, 24. 

124 See Dieterich, Mithrasliturgie, esp. p. 14 f.; and Reitzenstein, Poimandres, 
pp. 15 ff. 

125 Of course it should be stated that this view has not yet received universal 
acceptance, as can be seen for instance in the discussion which Schweitzer gives of 
the subject in his Paul and His Interpreters, ch. 7. See also on this subject Bousset, 
Kyrios Christos, pp. 148 ff. 

126 It is contended by some scholars that Paul's mysticism differed from the cur- 
rent mystical notions especially on two points: (1) his mysticism is a Christ-mysticism, 
not a God-mysticism, and (2) the idea of rebirth is almost absent in his writings. See 
especially Schweitzer, op. cit. As for these distinctions we might suggest that perhaps 
Paul's Jewish aversion to deification led him to modify his mysticism somewhat and 
to hesitate in using the word, rebirth or regeneration; and yet no matter whether his 
mysticism contemplated only a union with a heavenly being instead of with God 



70 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

his Christian life began with an experience of such a nature as to make 
him feel that a great inner transformation and change had taken place. 
In fact, it was a change that transformed him from a persecutor of the 
Christians to an advocate of their contentions. 127 The hate which he 
had had toward them was now replaced by love for them and loyalty 
to the Lord whom they served and whom he had persecuted. This 
change was so marked, it was something so inexplicable and so contrary 
to normal and natural processes, that it could have none but a super- 
natural origin and cause. At once Paul felt that a new entity had come 
into his life and an old entity had gone out. What was it? Doubtless 
Paul immediately thought of a spiritual being as the only agent who 
could effect such a change of character, and since the result of the change 
was the establishing in his heart of a favorable disposition toward the 
Christians and their Lord, he must have identified at once this spirit 
with the Spirit of Christ, the heavenly being whom the Christians 
regarded as Lord of spirits. "It is no longer I that live, but Christ 
liveth in me." 128 

It should be noted also that this change which had come into Paul's 
life was a permanent one. He did not love the Christians one day and 
hate them the next. Neither was his sense of loyalty and devotion to 
his heavenly Lord a spasmodic affair. So also his attitude toward sin 
and unrighteousness had become one of permanent hostility, and he 
was conscious of an abiding power in his life that aided and strengthened 
his will in the doing of good. It was this experience of Paul's that led 
him to conceive of the Spirit, which was the cause of this change, as 
an abiding and permanent influence in his life, and hence in the life of 
every believer. According to the popular conceptions of the Spirit, 
its operation was confined to special occasions as when the believers 
were stirred by some great emotional excitement, 129 or when they were 
called upon to preach or proclaim the will of God, 130 or when they had 
to bear testimony to their faith in the face of persecution, 131 or when 



Himself, the difference is essentially a very slight one, the idea of a mystical union 
being at any rate present in his mind; and no matter whether he failed to use the 
word regeneration, there is fundamentally very little difference between the idea of 
being born again, and of becoming a new creature. 

127 Gal. 1 .23. 

128 Gal. 2:20. 

129 Acts 2:1 ff.; I Cor. 14:2, 14; et al. 

130 Acts 4:31. 

131 Mark 13:11; Acts 4:8 ff. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 71 

they prophesied and saw visions and revelations, 132 or when they were 
called upon to undertake new work or to make a departure in the plans 
of their work. 133 The Spirit, it was thought, was active mainly at 
times of high emotional tension, at times of crises in the lives of individ- 
uals or in the work of the Church, and at times when special divine 
guidance was needed by the leaders in the promulgation of the new 
religion. The operation of the Spirit was occasional and temporary 
because the experiences which they ascribed to pneumatic influence 
were also of that character. But Paul, while recognizing these special 
and occasional activities of the Spirit because he too had times of special 
elation and ecstasy, nevertheless considered the Spirit as an abiding 
and permanent factor in his own and every believer's life simply because 
he regarded the permanent transformation of character that attended 
the believer's entrance upon and walk in the Christian life as the work 
of the Spirit also. And this conception arose out of his own experience. 

And it is also out of his experience that his ethical conception of the 
Spirit grew. When once he had confessed faith in Jesus as a heavenly 
being, Lord of spirits and master of all the evil forces to which men 
were subjected, and had a consciousness as the result of the change in 
his life of the presence of the Spirit of this heavenly being in his heart, 
a great sense of victory over sin and evil must have come to him. Sin 
previously had dominated his being, leading him to do what he felt 
he should not, and preventing him from doing what he should. 134 But 
now he felt that he was freed from this bondage by the Spirit that dwelt 
within him and he was able by the help of this new increment in his 
life to conquer the evil propensities of his mortal body. 135 Such a vic- 
tory over sin and fear and the lusts of the flesh was a miraculous event, 
something inexplicable from a human standpoint, something that 
could only be explained by postulating the agency and activity of Deity. 
Paul had indeed made strenuous efforts to lead a righteous life before 
he became a Christian but he had failed. The present victory was 
due not to his normal human powers but to the work of the Spirit of the 
Lord Jesus in him. And it was for this reason that Paul ascribed all 
that was good in him to the Spirit. Since he had a piece of the Deity in 
him, so to speak, dominating his will and controlling his actions, his 
conduct could be none other than the result of the Spirit's working in 

132 Acts 11:28; II Cor. 12:1; Rev. 4:2. 

133 Acts 10:19; 13:2; 16:6 ff. 

134 Rom. 7:15 ff. 

135 Rom. 8; Gal. 5:16 ff. 



72 A STUDY Or THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

him. All the graces and virtues and actions of life he therefore reckoned 
among the products of this spiritual indwelling. "But the fruit of the 
Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 
meekness, self-control." 136 It was this ethicizing of the conception 
of the Spirit which we owe particularly to the work of Paul, and it 
doubtless grew out of his experience as a Christian. 

But this is not the last word to be said with regard to Paul's con- 
ception of the Spirit. He used terms in speaking of the Spirit and 
of his experience which were not in common use among the Jews and 
these should here receive some consideration. 

He first of all describes his conversion as a revelation of God's Son 
in or to him. 137 Paul's idea of revelation may perhaps be gleaned from 
the description of his experience in II Cor. 12:1 ff. Of course, it is 
clear that the Jews were familiar with the ordinary form of revelation 
in which either an angel or spirit came down from heaven or the soul ascend- 
ed to heaven, but they seem to have lacked the idea of a transformation 
of character taking place through a revelation. They ordinarily thought 
of revelation simply as a means of obtaining supernatural knowledge. But 
with Paul the idea of a change of life seems to be present in his notion 
of revelation. And this reminds one at once of the description given 
of the transformation of Thot in a Hermetic docu ment of about the first 
century A. D., in which Hermes tells Thot, his son, of his own regenera- 
tion by a divine revelation to his heart; he had had an inner immaterial 
vision and had passed through his own body into an immortal body. 
As he relates his experience to his son, the latter's body too is transformed 
and he is set free from the twelve evil propensities. Furthermore he 
is able by divine energy to have spiritual visions and he feels himself 
to be in harmony with all the elements. Hermes then teaches him a 
hymn of praise, in which he was to say: "My spirit is illumined. . . . 
To Thee, O God, author of my new creation, I, Thot, offer spiritual 
sacrifices. O God and Father, thou art the Lord; thou are the Spirit 
(vovs). Accept from me the spiritual things which thou desirest. '' 13s 
Here we have a striking example of a rebirth, a transformation of char- 
acter through revelation, in which the subject is freed from the evil 

136 Gal. 5:22 ff. 

137 Gal. 1:16. 

138 See Reitzenstein, Poim., pp. 339-48; Die Hellen. Myster., p. 33; and Jacoby, 
Die Antik. Myster., pp. 33, 34. Note also the instance given by Reitzenstein 
(Die Hellen. Myster., p. 141) of the alchemist Zosimus who was renewed by a priest 
in his vision, so that he became irvevna. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 73 

propensities of the flesh; and the similarity of this conception to Paul's 
experience no one could very well be so bold as to deny, though there 
may be no direct relation between the two. 

Again Paul uses such expressions as to be in Christ, to be in the 
Spirit, Christ in us, or the Spirit in us, to describe what he regards as 
the Christians' experience. These terms are practically synonymous, 
the ones in which the name of Christ is used having perhaps a less 
abstract but a more personal content than those in which the Spirit 
is mentioned. In all of them the idea of a union or fusion of the human 
and divine is present, and Paul here evinces a mysticism that separates 
him from his Jewish contemporaries and indicates an acquaintance 
with a type of thought that was widely current in his day outside of 
Jewish circles. It was the type of thought represented by the mystery 
religions and the Hermetic cults, and its chief elements were the ideas 
of union with the Deity, or deification, and of the hope of immortality. 
The usual term employed to express the union with the Deity was 
evdeos, and to become evdeos was to attain immortality. 139 The wor- 
shippers of Dionysos were thought to enter into union with the god, 140 
and the Orphic worshippers believed that they actually became gods. 
Deification was promised to the devotee of Osiris in this way: "Happy 
and blessed one, thou shalt be god instead of mortal." 141 We might 
also quote the Hermetic Corpus in illustration of this same thought: 
"This is the blessed end for those who have attained knowledge, to be 
deified. " 142 The well-known experience of Lucius, recorded by Apuleius, 
is of a similar character; his mystic initiation brings to him an assurance 
of union with Isis, causing his heart to go out in a prayer of great beauty 
and devotion. 143 The worshipper of Attis who emasculated himself 
thought that thereby he became Attis and would rise with the god from 
the dead. 

It is in the fight of these ideas that one has to interpret Paul's use 
of the terms, to be in Christ and to be in the Spirit. Of course, Paul 

139 Soph., Oed. Col., 607. 

140 Aeschines, Soc, 2, 23: al /3d/cxai orav tvdeoi yevuvrai; Plato, Phaed., 253A; 
evdeoi. Xanfiavovai. to. edrj /cat to. €TriTr]8evfxaTa (rod deov) Kadocxov 8vvar6v deov avdpomco 
(xeTaaxecvL. See also Aristot., Prob., 30, 2:evdeoi navreis; and Plut, Plac. Phil., 5, 1, 1: 
IxavTLKi] Kara to evdeov oirep earw evQeaariKov. 

141 Egyptian Book of the Dead, 125. See also Harrison, Prolegomena, pp. 556, 
660 ff. 

142 1, sec. 26. 

143 Apuleius, Metamor., XI, 23-25. 



74 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

never says outright that he is Christ, much less as a Jew would he claim 
deification; yet there can be no doubt but that he approaches the con- 
ceptions of the mysteries and believes that the Christian is mystically 
united with his Lord. It is a matter of conviction with Paul that as a 
result of his faith in Christ he is united with him and a new element or 
increment of a divine nature has been added to his personality. He 
is now no ordinary man, a \pvxwbs with only a living soul within him; 
he has in addition a Trvedfia, an entity which has come to him from with- 
out and which has become the dominating principle of his life. He is 
now a irvevnariKos, and he lives on a higher plane and in a less material 
atmosphere than the one who has only a ipvxv- In reality he believed 
that it was Christ himself who now dwelt in his body and spoke through 
him. 144 The difference between this conception and that of evdeos is 
certainly not very great. 

Again Paul uses the idea of sonship to designate the change that 
had come into his life. And although he does not use the word rebirth 
or regeneration, the expressions, "sons of God" and "children of God," 
signify practically that very thing. 145 And this idea too is not a Jewish 
conception, 146 but a notion that prevailed among the mystical cults. 
The Jews had the idea of becoming like a child, 147 but this was quite a 
different thing from the mystical notion of a spiritual lebirth. Among 
the Attis and Mithras worshippers this conception was particularly 
emphasized. The blood baptism in the Taurobolium was believed 
so to purify the worshipper that he was reborn; his old life was buried, 
as it were, and he was raised to a newness of life. 148 And various Roman 

144 Gal. 2:20; II Cor. 13:3. 

145 Rom. 8:14, 16; Gal. 3:23 ff; 4:6. 

146 It might be objected that Paul does not have in mind a rebirth but simply 
sonship by adoption. And it is true that this is the terminology used by him in both 
the passages quoted above (Rom. 8:14, 16; Gal. 3:23 ff.; 4:6), and one might well 
think that he is heie dealing with an idea familiar to Jews as well as to Gentiles. He 
is evidently thinking of the man who does not have the Spirit as a slave who is under 
bondage to sin and fear, but who by the attainment of the Spirit gains freedom and 
adoption as God's child. But when we inquire as to how Paul thought that this 
freedom from sin and fear was obtained, we realize that here he departs from the 
Jewish conception. It is by a process of dying with Christ and being raised again 
unto newness of life in his resurrection. It is this which delivers a man from bondage 
and wins him his sonship (Rom. 6:1-11; 7:7 ff.; 8:1-17; Gal. 3:26, 27). This is the 
mystical element in the idea of sonship that unites Paul with the Gentile thought- 
world and compels the conclusion that his conception of sonship differed very little 
from the idea of regeneration. 

14T Matthew 18:3 ff.; Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17. 

148 Prudentius, Peristeph., X, 1011 ff.; Cumont, Orien. Rel., pp. 58 ff. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 75 

inscriptions of the Cybele and Mithras cults describe the "baptized" 
as in aeternum renatus. m In Apuleius we find the same notion ascribed 
to the Isis cult: "For," says the highpriest of the Isis cult, "the portals 
of the nether world and the guardianship of salvation are placed in the 
hand of the goddess and the initiation itself is solemnized as the symbol 
of a voluntary death and a salvation given in answer to prayer, for the 
goddess is wont to choose such as, having fulfilled a course of life, stand 
at the very threshold of the departing light, to whom nevertheless the 
great mysteries of religion can be safely entrusted; and after they have 
been by her providence in a sense born again, she places them again on 
the course of a new life in salvation. " 150 In the so-called Mithrasliturgy 
the idea of rebirth occurs quite frequently. A significant passage is: 
"If it seems good to you," — the worshipper is addressing the Deity, — 
"permit me, now held down by my lower nature, to be reborn to immor- 
tality, . . . that I may become mentally reborn, that I may become 
initiated, that the Holy Spirit may breathe in me." 151 

Examples like the above might be multiplied, but these are sufficient 
to show that in certain circles at least the idea of a rebirth, of becoming 
a new creature, by union with Deity was very familiar in Paul's day. 
The belief centered in the idea that a man by symbolically passing 
through the dying and rising experiences of the Deity to whom he was 
united, was refashioned and became a creature of immortality. It 
seems clear that when Paul writes to the Romans that "as Christ was 
raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might 
walk in newness of life, for if we have become united with Him in the 
likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection," 
etc., 152 he is approaching very nearly the idea of a spiritual regeneration 
or rebirth unto immortality, which was such a prominent belief in the 
mystic cults. And here again we would not claim for Paul a direct 
dependence upon the literature cited above, nor can the opposite of 
course, viz., the derivation of the idea of rebirth in the mystery cults 
from Paul, be proved. What we do have to admit however is that Paul 
in giving expression to his experience used the terms that were current 

149 Dill, Rom. Soc, p. 547, n. 4. 

150 Metamor., XI, 21. 

151 Dieterich, Mithrasliturgie, p. 4. A noteworthy passage also occurs on p. 14. 
Reitzenstein, Die Hellen. Myster., pp. 113, 114, gives another instance where the 
idea of regeneration is present. 

152 Rom. 6:1-11. 



76 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

in his day and were generally employed to describe an experience such 
as he had. 

It might also be pointed out that in Paul's use of the term, "a new 
creature, " he is expressing an idea that approaches the notion of a rebirth. 
At least we are safe in saying that the conception of a transformation 
of being and character is present in the expression. 153 But perhaps 
we should rather regard this term as synonymous with the expression, 
"the new man," and if so, then its relation to the imagery of a heavenly 
garment clothing the believer is closer than to the idea of rebirth. For 
Paul speaks of putting on Christ, or putting on the new man as if the 
believer could clothe himself in this spiritual garb, 154 or as if he could 
put on the image of the Lord Jesus. 155 This figure of speech reminds 
one of the masks of the god which the devotees of the Mithras cult wore 
over their faces, thinking that thus they could be identified with the 
Deity and become united with him. The kings and priests of Egypt, 
we are told, wore beast masks when they sacrificed. 156 This in fact was 
a custom among most of the primitive cults, though by the time of Paul 
it had become more or less spiritualized. 157 The idea of the righteous, 
who are to be raised from the dead and clothed with garments of glory, 
. is found in Jewish literature, 158 and this notion corresponds to the idea, 
which Cumont points out as a feature of the Oriental religions, of heavenly 
garments which purified souls receive in their ascent to heaven. 159 But 
Paul was thinking of the present mortal state when he spoke of putting 
on the new man, and so had perhaps a transformation of the body in 
mind when he used the expression. The body was in many circles 
regarded as a garment for the soul, and with Paul the old man was 
identified with the body of flesh. 160 The man who had the Spirit had a 

153 II Cor. 5:15-17 clearly indicates such a change, and the transformation takes 
place through a mystical union with Christ. Cf. also Gal. 6:15; Eph. 2:1-10; 4:24; 
Col. 3:10. This union was also the cause for the effecting of a change in the Jews and 
Gentiles so that they now are no longer two bodies but one (Eph. 2:15). And Paul 
conceives of the bond between Christ and the Church as being quite similar to a 
mystical union (I Cor. 10:16; Col. 1:18, 24; 2:19). 

154 Rom. 13:14; Gal. 3:27; Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10, 12. Cf. also II Cor. 5:11 ff. 

155 Notice the use of "image" in I Cor. 15:49. Cf. Rom. 8:29 and Col. 3:10. 

156 Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, II, 130, 284, and Moret, Caractere reli- 
gieux de la monarchic Egyptienne. 

157 Wundt, Elem. d. Volkerpsych., pp. 260 ff. On the use of masks by the Greeks 
for scaring away the Keres, see Harrison, Prolegomena, p. 188. 

158 Eth. En. 62:15. 

159 Les Religions Orientales, pp. 235 f., 391. 

160 Eph. 4:22. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 77 

germ within him that would transmute the essence of his o-co/ia xpuxwov, 
or old man, and change it into a cco/za irvevfiaTLKop. This process was 
begun in this life but would be completed at the resurrection. The 
inner man, the eauOev avdpooiros, was the nucleus which was to be clothed 
over by the acofxa irvevixariKov}^ Putting on the new man or putting on 
Christ implied therefore a change not only of the inner man, but of the 
body as well; it meant the clothing of the inner man with a spiritual 
body. 162 And this change it should be noticed meant to Paul practically 
the same thing as the acquiring of divine sonship. 163 

As for Paul's ethical view of the Spirit it might be said that he here 
also shows that he was a man of his time, for as we have already observed, 
the time was characterized by a great ethical movement, and the ethic- 
izing of the conception of the Spirit was taking place among both Jews 
and Greeks. The ordinary Jewish conception of the Spirit placed stress 
upon its spectacular manifestations of power, and yet their idea of the 
Spirit that should possess the Messiah was one of ethical content. 164 
The Stoic ethics too indicates how the whole moral life was connected 
with the Spirit. The whole inner life of man was regarded as being 
divine. And by some Stoics the demons came to be thought of not as 
external powers, but as a kind of ideal personality dwelling permanently 
within the soul. 165 The use of the word, oaios to describe the initiated 
in the mysteries must have meant more than merely the proper per- 
formance of a ritual; it surely had some ethical significance. 166 It is 
natural that since there was an ethicizing of the conception of Deity 
and of spiritual beings, the emphasis should come to be placed more upon 
the moral quality of Deity and Spirit than upon their power. And it is 
just on this point that Paul shows that he is in advance of the popular 
ideas of his day, for although he does not discard the idea of power, he 
does place stress upon the Spirit's activity in the moral life. 

161 See Reitzenstein, Die Hellen. Myster., pp. 177-8 for similar ideas among the 
mysteries. With them this change of body for spirit of course involved the idea of 
a transmutation of essence. 

162 Cf. Phil. 3:21; Rom. 8:23; I Cor. 15:44; II Cor. 4:16; 5:4, 5. 

163 Cf. Gal. 3:26 and 3:27. 

164 Is. 11:1-5; Eth. En. 62:2. 

165 Mar. Aur., V, 10, 27; VII, 17; Epic, I, 14, sec. 12. On the relation between 
Stoicism and Paul see Pfleiderer, Prim. Xty, Vol. I, ch. 3. On the ethical character 
and influence of the Greek religion see the estimate given by Farnell in his Higher 
Aspects of Greek Religion, Lect. 6. 

iM Wobbermin, Religionsgeschichtliche Studien, pp. 36 ff . 



78 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Now if in his popular conceptions of the Spirit Paul was at one with 
the notions of the Christians of the early Church and manifested a 
relationship both with Jewish and Gentile thought, in his mystical 
conception of the Spirit, and therefore in his notion of the Spirit as a 
permanent and moral influence in life he differed from the primitive 
Christian ideas and allied himself more with the thought-world of the 
Oriental religions, or of those Hellenists who had come under the influence 
of this mysticism. 167 Of course, this conception had its roots in his 
experience, but the only way in which he could interpret this experience 
was in the psychological thought-forms which were used in his day and 
which he had learned in his training and travel. 

The Johannine conception of the Spirit's activity in the believer was 
in many ways similar to that of Paul's. Its operation was confined to 
the Christian group of believers, 168 and it formed the mystical bond 
between them and the Deity. The possession of the Spirit was con- 
ceived of as a permanent and abiding entity dwelling in the soul, and 
its ethical significance was put in the foreground. If a man did not 
love his brethren and was not obedient to the will of God, he lacked 
the union with the Logos or with God which the Spirit effected. In 
general the idea of the Spirit as the power of Christ active in the Christian 
life and pervading it throughout is as much a Johannine as a Pauline 
notion. But on the other hand there is also a difference between their 
conceptions. Paul's experience of the Spirit is still largely emotional; 
in John the intellectual is more prominent. In Paul the idea of power 
still lingers; in John the idea of knowledge is uppermost. 169 In Paul 
the notion of rebirth, though present, is yet not definitely expressed; 
in John the term is openly used and the idea is a constant theme. 170 
In general we see in John an advance toward the realm of speculation 
and metaphysics. 

According to John the Spirit was an effluence from the heavenly 
Christ, or his representative upon earth, sent after he had left the world 
to continue the work which he had begun. He was to be the teacher of 

167 On the influence of the mysteries on Paul see Gardner, Religious Experience 
of St. Paul, chs. 4 & 5. See also the bibliography given by Schweitzer in his Paul 
and His Interpreters at the beginning of ch. 7. 

168 John 14:15 f. 

169 The fact that John fails to mention a single case of demon-exorcism is signifi- 
cant in this connection. 

170 A summary of the similarities and divergences between the Pauline and 
Johannine conceptions will be found in Bousset, Kyrios Christos, pp. 217 ff. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 79 

the disciples, bringing to their remembrance the things which Jesus 
had said and done while upon earth, 171 guiding them into all truth, 172 
and perfecting in them the divine knowledge which the Logos had come 
into the world to reveal. The Spirit would be active as a witness, 
doubtless using the disciples as his instruments, and would justify the 
life of Jesus before the world against all unbelief and opposition. 173 
He would furthermore aid the disciples by becoming a comforter to them 
in time of persecution, or at times when the bearing of testimony was 
difficult. 174 He is spoken of in personal terms, such words as teaching, 
witnessing, convincing, guiding, hearing, judging, etc., being employed; 
and one is led to believe that the author had a more hypostatized con- 
ception of the Spirit than Paul. Yet one could hardly say that John 
believed in a Trinity. The Spirit is thought of as being like a wind, or 
a breath, or an influence. 175 He is either an emanation of divine sub- 
stance from the risen Christ or his double. He has come from heaven 
to direct the activity and knowledge of the Christian cult in the place 
of the departed Logos. 

How the Spirit was obtained according to the conception of John 
will be dealt with later on. As for the genetic relations of the Johannine 
conceptions, suffice it to say here that they like Paul's find their method 
of expression in the mysticism of the age, and their variations from 
Paul's notions are due chiefly to the difference in the time and place 
in which the authors lived. 

As for the conceptions of the Spirit in the less important books of 
the New Testament, there is nothing very distinctive. It might be 
noted that I Peter reveals perhaps some Pauline influence. The Spirit 
is conceived of as sanctifying power and as a permanent possession. 176 
And this is likewise the conception of the author of Hebrews, for when 
he speaks of the new covenant of grace written on the hearts of men, 177 
he has in mind a permanent spiritual state. And when he refers to the 

171 John 14:26. This was doubtless the way in which the author of the fourth Gos- 
pel explained or authorized the growing tradition of the Church regarding Jesus' life. 

172 John 16:13; 14:17; 15:26. 

173 John 16:8-11. 

174 John 15:26,27. 

175 John 3:8; 20:22. 

176 1 Pet. 1:2; 3:15; 4:14. 
177 Heb. 10:15 ff. 



80 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

possibility of a man losing possession of the Spirit, he implies by this 
very admission that ordinarily this possession was of a permanent 
nature. 178 

178 Heb. 6:4-6. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 81 



CHAPTER 4 

THE BELIEVER AS PNEUMATIKOS: MEANS OF ACQUIRING 

THE SPIRIT 

We have already noticed that among primitive peoples certain external 
forms of emotional stimulation were used to produce the physical con- 
ditions which were thought to reveal the presence and activity of a spirit 
or demon, such as, for example, the performance of certain dances or 
bodily movements, the eating and drinking of certain drugs, the coming 
into contact with a person or thing that was spirit-possessed, etc. Cer- 
tain cases in which the abnormal features of the phenomena were due 
to defective physical and mental conditions such as sickness and in- 
sanity, of course, did not need any external stimulus. And the same 
might be said with regard to the possession of dream spirits, though it 
came to be the custom to regard sleeping in a temple, particularly in 
the temple of a healing-god, as being especially conducive to the 
production of dreams. But so far as the acquiring of oracular spirits 
was concerned, the application of some external stimulus was quite 
early conceived of as being a necessity. 

Among the Jews the inspiration or raving of the early prophets was 
brought on chiefly through bodily movements or playing of musical in- 
struments. 1 Among the Greeks it was aroused by the eating of drugs 
and herbs and by the inhalation of gases. The Dionysiac worshipper 
ate the raw flesh of the bull that was offered as a victim of sacrifice, and 
thus became inspired. The devotee of the mysteries went through 
the performance of certain ritual acts: the baptism or lustration of the 
body, the sacrifice of a pig, the sight of a sacred drama in which the myth 
of the cult was either pictorially represented or acted out on the stage, 
and the participation in a sacred meal. 2 

This was perhaps the state of affairs when the ethical movement 
arose, and placing the stress upon the inner life became the means 
whereby not merely the external observance of a rite, but the produc- 
tion of a certain emotional and intellectual frame of mind, or the posses- 
sion of certain moral and mental qualifications, came to be thought 
of as necessary if one wished to enter into relation with a spirit or god. 

n Sam 10:5 ff.; II Sam 6:16, 21. 

2 See bibliography on the mystery cults, or religions of redemption as they are 
sometimes called, in Case, Evolution of Early Xty, p. 287, n. 1. 



82 A STUDY OF THE SPIB IT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Isaiah considered himself unfit to be a prophet because of his "unclean 
lips." 3 The mysteries refused to admit persons who were openly im- 
moral. 4 Plutarch believed that the demons held communion with or 
took possession of only such as were cultured. 5 According to the Her- 
metic Corpus the inspired state was secured through divine knowledge 
or revelation, that is, by the speaking of a message or word to the one 
seeking inspiration or union with the Deity. 6 This same idea pre- 
vailed also among the Jews, for the acquiring of Wisdom or the Spirit 
was a result of a knowledge of the divine Word. 7 

When the Christian movement began, the preaching of the Gospel 
or the revelation of the good news of the coming Messiah, must have 
been the chief means of producing ecstatic and pneumatic conditions. 
It was a part of primitive belief that the uttered word of an inspired 
person had peculiar power. The word of the mantis had the power of 
bringing to fulfillment the prophecies which he uttered regarding the 
future. 8 A word from the lips of Jesus was sufficient to heal the sick. 
And the words of a prophet had the power of influencing others and effect- 
ing a change in their lives. 9 It was by the hearing of faith, that is, 
by the preaching of the word that the Galatians had received their 
first taste of spiritual endowment.- 10 The book of Acts also gives re- 
peated instances of ecstatic conditions following the preaching of the 
Christian message, but it should be noted that in only one case is the 
possession of the Spirit represented as taking place before the rite of 
baptism was performed. 11 The Gnostics seem to have been especially 
familiar with the idea of inspiration through a divine message or word; 
Hermes was called the Word of God and could, as we have seen, inspire 

3 Is. 6:5. 

4 The Emperor Nero was one who was evidently regarded as morally unfit to belong 
to the Eleusinian mysteries (Suet. Nero, 34). 

5 Disc. Con. Soc. Dem., 21 & 22. 

6 The case of Thot cited above (ch. 3, p. 72) is an instance in which the inspired 
state is produced by the relation of another's spiritual experience. 

7 See citations above in ch. 2, n. 87. 

8 Halliday, Gr. Divin., ch. 4. Cf. also Martyrdom of Polycarp, 16. 

9 1 Cor. 14:3, 25, 30 f. 

10 Gal. 3:2. Cf. also Rom. 10:14, 17; Eph. 1:13; I Cor. 2:4, 5; 4:15; and I Thess. 2:13 

"Acts 10:44; 11:15. This was however no doubt specially designed by the 
author of Acts in order to show that the testimony of the Spirit was necessary to get 
Peter and the Jewish church to sanction the Gentile mission. Of course, Peter would 
not baptize a Gentile before he had evidence that the latter was worthy of Spirit- 
possession. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 83 

others by his utterances. 12 So when John represents the words of 
Jesus as being spirit and life, he is giving expression to a thought that 
was current in circles such as the Gnostics, 13 and a thought that reveals 
an independence from sacramental means in obtaining possession of the 
Spirit that must have characterized certain groups of believers after 
speculation began to supplant ritual. 

It is difficult to tell just how early the Christians made use of sacra- 
ments as an instrument in the production of ecstatic states. Heitmuller 
is of the opinion that Christian baptism had its roots in the popular 
Jewish customs of washings and purifications, in the baptism of prose- 
lytes, and in the practice of John the Baptist and his followers, and that 
it arose as a cult practice very early in the history of the Christian move- 
ment, perhaps immediately after the death of Jesus. 14 The Lord's 
Supper and the laying on of hands too may very well have been observed 
from the beginning of the movement. These observances then must have 
been a part of the practices of the earliest group of Jewish Christians, but 
it is doubtful whether they attained any marked sacramental character 
until they were adopted by the Gentile Christians among whom they 
acquired a more sacramental and mystical significance. 

Among the Jewish Christians baptism was doubtless used as a form 
of initiation into the cult, bat it was more than a mere form. It con- 
sisted evidently of two acts: the lustration of the body and the naming 
of the name of Jesus over the initiate, and both of these ritual acts 
had more than a symbolic significance. The water used in immersion 
was regarded as possessing peculiar divine power, and hence could drive 
away the demons or evil spirits who were responsible for sins. 15 Es- 
pecially did living or running water possess such strength or virtue. So 
it was thought that when a man was baptized, these demonic forces 
were driven away and he became spiritually clean; in other words, his 

12 Justin, ApoL, I, 22. 

13 John 6:63. The preaching of Jesus is said to have had cleansing and sancti- 
fying power (John 15:3; 17:17). 

14 Heitmuller, Taufe u. Abendmal im Urchristentum, pp. 5 ff. 

15 It should be remarked here that the Jews like the Gentiles regarded sins as 
the work of evil spirits. Already in O. T. times the demonic cause of sin is affirmed 
as we see from such passages as Hos. 4:12; 5:4; Num. 5:14, 30; I Ki. 22:20 ff.; Zach. 
13:2; Is. 29:10; 19:14, where adultery, jealousy, lying, uncleanness, lethargy, and 
blindness are ascribed to such an origin. The case of Naaman is an illustration of 
the Jewish conception of the divine potency of water (II Ki. 5:1 ff.). For Gentile 
ideas regarding this same belief see Halliday, Gr. Divin., ch. 7. 



84 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

sins were washed away. 16 The uncleanness and impurity which had 
accrued through contact with evil demons was thus gotten rid of, fel- 
lowship with God was re-established, and forgiveness of sin was obtained. 

But the baptismal rite also included the use of the name of Jesus. 17 
And this practice had its roots too in primitive thought, for it was quite 
generally believed that if a man used the name of a deity, he could not 
only acquire power over the deity himself, but could exercise the divine 
power, which the possession and use of the deity's name secured him, 
over other human and spiritual beings. The use of the name of Jesus 
in baptism had then an exorcising function, and supposedly effected 
the driving of evil spirits either out of the water that was used for bap- 
tizing, or more probably out of the initiate who was being baptized. 
Baptism thus gave the initiate protection and salvation from the domi- 
nance of Satan and the demons over his life. 18 

In the Gentile churches the rite of baptism must have meant also 
more than a mere form of initiation. And in addition to the Jewish 
conception of the rite, which the Gentile Christians no doubt adopted, 
a mystical element entered into the practice which tended to make the 
rite more sacramental. 19 This element doubtless came in as an influence 
from the mystery religions, in which rites of purification by water or 
blood were quite common. The object of these rites was not simply to 
remove ceremonial impurity, but to create a powerful emotional impres- 
sion upon the initiate, and to serve as a symbolic representation of the 
dying and rising experiences of the deity, enabling men who by baptism 
became partakers of the deity's experiences to share in his immortal life. 
So these sacred ablutions became the means not only of getting rid of 
the baleful influence of demons, but of imparting new life. In the initia- 
tory ceremonies of the mysteries of Eleusis, Isis, and Mithras, the bap- 
tism not only washed away sin, but served as a symbol of the resur- 
rection and wrought a process of regeneration in the soul of the initiate. 20 
The result of this rite was a new birth. The initiate passed symboli- 
cally into the land of death and returned a new creature to the light. 21 
In the so-called Mithrasliturgy is the significant passage: "Hail, to 

16 See Clem. Horn., XI, 22 ff. 

17 Acts 2:38 et at. 

18 On this interpretation of baptism in the early Christian community see Heit- 
miiller, op. cit., pp. 10 ff. 

19 See particularly Tertullian, De Baptismo, ch. 5, and Pfleiderer, Early Christian 
Conception of Christ, pp. 117 ff. 

20 Tertullian, op. cit.; and De Praescrip. Haer., ch. 40. 
21 Apuleius, Metam. XI, 21, 23. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 85 

Thee, Lord of Water, Founder of the Earth, Ruler of the Spirit! Born 
again I expire, in that I am being exalted, and as I am exalted I die; 
born with the birth which begets life I am delivered to death and go 
the way, as thou hast instituted, as thou hast ordained and constituted 
the sacrament." 22 And the blood-baptism of the Attis and Mithras 
cults symbolized this same process of death and resurrection to newness 
of life. In all of these cults, however, it should be remembered that it 
was not baptism as such that imparted a renewed life, but the union with 
the deity which the worshipper sustained and in virtue of which he 
derived the right and privilege of participating in the deity's experience 
and life. Baptism was merely a means of effecting a union with the 
deity. 

When we turn to Paul's conception of baptism, we find that he 
approaches this mystical and sacramental idea. In I Cor. 6:11 he says: 
"And such were some of you; but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, 
but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the 
Spirit of our God. " And what he here says of the sanctification of the 
individual, he also says in Eph. 5:26 of the Church as a whole: "And 
(Christ) gave himself up for it (the Church) that he might sanctify it, 
having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word." In both 
of these passages baptism is regarded as effecting a mystical purification, 
though in the latter the preaching of the Christian message is connected 
with baptism. Again, the reference which Paul makes to baptism in 
Rom. 6:lff. is stated in terms familiar to the mysteries and is saturated 
with the idea of a participation on the part of the initiate in the death 
and resurrection of the dying and rising god, Christ. Baptism was like 
a burial in which the body of sin or the old man was put away by the 
immersion in water, while the rising out of the water was like a resur- 
rection to new life. 23 Sin, in the mind of Paul, especially according 
to the sixth to the eighth chapters of Romans, was conceived of as a 
personal being inhabiting the human body and holding men in subjec- 
tion and bondage to itself. 24 The presence of this being in the body 
resulted in sickness and death. 25 But by baptism this element in a 
man's natural constitution was killed and a new element was added to 

22 Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, pp. 14, 166. 

23 Cf. also Col. 2:12. 

24 See especially Rom. 6:7, 16-23; 7:8 ff.; 8:3. Also Gal. 3:22; and Rom. 3:9. 
For a discussion of this subject see Dibelius, Die Geisterwelt im Glauben des Paulus, 
pp. 120 ff . 

25 1 Cor. 11:30; Rom. 6:23 et al. 



86 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

his life whereby he was made alive. This element was the heavenly 
being Christ, or his Spirit. 26 

Doubt has been expressed as to whether Paul really believed that 
an external rite such as baptism could effect an inner change. It must 
be admitted that faith was to Paul the necessary condition of salvation, 
and that according to his opinion revelation could be obtained directly 
from God. And it seems that his view of baptism was in flat contradic- 
tion to his attitude toward the Jewish ceremonial law. If there is really 
a contradiction here, 27 we can do no more than simply to acknowledge it; 
Paul was too practical a man to be consistent in all points. But we 
should also remember that Paul was living in a time of transition, when 
Christianity was passing over from Judaism to the Greek world; and it 
should naturally be expected that if he himself was not a sacramentarian, 
he at least must have been affected by the magical and sacramental ideas 
of the people to whom he ministered. 28 

After the time of Paul, as the Greek fondness for sacraments made 
itself felt in the Christian cult, the sacramental idea of baptism con- 
tinued to develop. The author of the Pastorals conceives of baptism 
as the washing of regeneration. 29 And even the "spiritualizing" author 
of the fourth Gospel regards both the water and the Spirit as agents 
in the new birth. 30 The early non-canonical Christian literature also 

26 Rom. 6:11; I Cor. 12:13. The latter passage is claimed by Kennedy (St' 
Paid and the Mystery-religions, p. 239) to be the only one in which Paul brings the 
gift of the Spirit into close connection with baptism, and he infers from this fact that 
Paul did not regard baptism as being "the actual vehicle by which salvation was con- 
veyed to the Christian." All that needs be said in answer to such an opinion is that 
the argument from silence is a very precarious one, and that here we have to do with 
ideas, not with the mere use or non-use of a word. If Paul does not mention the Spirit 
whenever he speaks of baptism, he nevertheless always refers to a spiritual change 
that attended the baptismal rite. Lake suggests that the reason why Paul said so 
little about the Spirit in connection with baptism was because the acquiring of the 
Spirit as a result of baptism was taken for granted and did not need special mention 
(Earlier Epis. of Paul, p. 385 f.). 

27 See Holtzmann, N. T. Theologie, 2nd edit., II, p. 198. 

28 That Paul was at one with his day in the beb'ef in the magical effect of 
bapcism is seen in his acceptance of the practice of baptizing for the dead (I Cor. 
15:29). This was no doubt a rite supposed to work saving power upon some dead 
relative or friend who had not been baptized before death; and it may have had its 
origin in the Orphic ritual, for "deliverance and purification of living and dead" 
was promised in the Dionysiac initiation. See Plato, Rep., II, 364; and Rohde, 
Psyche, p. 420 f. 

29 Tit. 3:5. 

30 Jn. 3:5. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 87 

reveals the important bearing which baptism was thought to have upon 
the life of the Spirit. The author of the Didache believes that running 
water should be used in baptism. 31 Tertullian too is a believer in the 
magical power of water, as may be seen from the following statement: 
"With the increase of the grace of God water also acquired more power; 
that which once healed ills of the body now restores the soul; and that 
which worked temporal good now renews to eternal life. " 32 The author 
of Barnabas is clearly of the opinion that baptism results in the driving 
out of the evil spirits in a man's heart, for before he becomes a Chris- 
tian, his body is a house of demons. 33 And Hermas evaluates baptism 
so highly as to build his whole ecclesiastical tower upon its waters. 34 

We see then that baptism early became connected with the gift of 
the Spirit. The emotional experience resulting from the observance of 
the rite was ascribed to the presence of a spiritual being. The coming 
of the Spirit upon Jesus at his baptism, as Mark conceives it, was the ac- 
quisition on his part of a new divine element or increment in his life. 
The change which came into the believer's life at baptism was also 
thought to have been effected by some spiritual agency. It was not 
simply the application of water or the use of the name of Jesus that 
brought about this change; it was the presence of some spiritual force 
in the water and name that accomplished the feat. Hence it was not only 
the Spirit which a man obtained at baptism, but the Spirit himself was 
the power that made baptism effective. 

The Lord's Supper too, early came to be considered as a means of 
inducing and stimulating pneumatic conditions. Among the original 
Jewish Christian group, it was evidently observed simply as a memorial 
feast, perhaps in imitation of the meals which Jesus had often eaten 
with his disciples. It is probable that when they thus ate together, they 
may have thought that Jesus himself was present with them as an unseen 
guest. At least it is natural that at such times their memories of him 
should have been very vividly aroused, and a consciousness of his pre- 
sence in their midst would in such a case have been presupposed. 
Whether, however, their communion with him on such occasions was 

31 Did. 7:2. 

32 De Baptismo, ch. 5; Clem. Horn., XI, 22 ff. 

33 Barn. 16. It might however with reason be objected that the author regards 
faith in Jesus' name as the power that drives out these demons, but it is nevertheless 
to be inferred that this exorcism, according to the opinion of the writer, took place 
at Baptism. 

34 Sim. 9:16. Cf. also Mand. 4:3. 



S3 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

conceived of as being anything more than a matter of social fellow- 
ship is rather doubtful, though they may have been familiar with the 
ancient idea that the eating of sacred food placed a man in mystical 
communion with the deity to whom the food was consecrated. 35 But 
this latter was more of a Gentile than a Jewish conception, and must 
have influenced the Christian thought of the Eucharist chiefly after 
the movement had spread into the Gentile world. It is noticeable that 
Paul occupies a middle position between the Jewish and Gentile con- 
ceptions. On the one hand he recommends to the Corinthian Chris- 
tians the observance of the Lord's Supper as a memorial feast, 36 while 
on the other hand he believes that the rite was a sacrament binding the 
participant with a mystic bond to his Lord. 37 

The possibility of a man entering into mystic union with the Deity 
through the partaking of food sacrificed to Him was an idea that had 
its roots in primitive beliefs, and was widely current in New Testament 
times. In the cult of Dionysos the flesh of a bull sacrificed to the god 
was torn with the teeth and eaten raw, the participant thinking that 
thus he obtained the divine life resident in the victim. 38 The Attis 
worshipper partook of some food from a drum and of some drink from 
a cymbal; 39 and that this was a sacred meal may be inferred from the 
description which Firmicus Maternus gives of the rite, especially in the 
passage where he exhorts the Attis devotee to become a partaker of the 
Christians' sacred meal: " Wretched one! Thou hast eaten poison and 
drunk of the cup of death. Meat of another kind it is that confers life 
and salvation, that restores the fainting, that calls back the wanderers, 
that raises the fallen, that grants to the dying the sign of endless immor- 
tality; seek the bread and cup of Christ, that you may fill your human 
nature with substance that is immortal. " The worship of Mithras also 
included participation in a sacred meal. 40 And we might say that in 
general all food offered as a sacrifice to the gods was thought to possess 
a divine potency or strength which could be appropriated by the simple 
act of partaking of it. 41 This belief was the cause for the difficulty 

35 Robertson Smith, Relig. of the Semites, pp. 239 ff . 
36 1 Cor. 11:24, 25. 
37 1 Cor. 10:14 ff. 

38 Clement, Protrep., I, 12, 17 f.; Arnobius, Adv. Nat., V, 19; Frazer, The Golden 
Bough, II, 165; Rohde, Psyche, pp. 301 ff. 

39 Firmicus Maternus, De Errore Profan. Relig., ch. 18. 

40 Justin, Apol. I, 66; Tertullian, De Praescrip. Haer., 40. 

41 On ancient beliefs regarding the eating of a deity see Gruppe, Griech. Mytholo- 
gie, p. 734; Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, p. 100; and Wendland, Hellen. Romiscfa. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 89 

and contention that arose in the Corinthian church regarding the eating 
of meats that had thus been sacrificed, the strong or irveviiaTiKoi, holding 
that since idols were nothing but matter and the creation of men's hands, 
the eating of meat sacrificed to them was a matter of indifference, the 
weak still holding to the belief that such meat had a spiritual potency 
of an evil nature. 42 

When these Gentiles became Christians, they applied these notions 
regarding the eating of sacred food to the common meal of the Chris- 
tian cult, and made a sacrament out of it. And it is in the light of 
these ideas that one has to interpret the institution of the Lord's Supper 
as it was practised in the Gentile churches. The bread and wine of 
which they partook were regarded as surcharged with the potency of 
the Spirit of Jesus, and they believed that by partaking of these elements 
they received a new increment of divine substance in them that united 
them with the heavenly and risen Christ and gave them an assurance of 
immortality. Even the circle of readers to which the fourth Gospel 
was addressed was doubtless familiar with this mystical conception of 
sacred meals, for the use of such expressions by the author as "to eat 
the flesh" and " drink the blood of the Son of Man" would certainly point 
in that direction. 43 Of course, the author of this Gospel did not believe 
in the crass sacramental use of the Lord's Supper which later came to 
prevail in the Church, for he did not intend these expressions to be 
interpreted in a literal and physical sense. That is clear from his state- 
ment in 6:62, 63 where he says: "What then if ye should behold the 
Son of Man ascending where he was before? It is the spirit that giveth 
life; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you 
are spirit and are life." His idea plainly is that when the believer 
receives the elements of the Lord's Supper, he does not partake of the 
physical body and blood of the earthly Jesus, but of the spiritual body 
of the heavenly Christ. The fourth Gospel then may also be cited in 



Kultur, p. 127. The belief that by eating an inspired book one could gain possession 
of the Spirit belongs to this same category. See Ez. 3:2 ff. Jer. 15:16; and Rev. 
10:8-10. In IV Ez. 14:38 we have an example of inspiration following the drinking 
of fire-like water. This as well as the wine in the Eucharist finds a parallel in the 
wine which the Dionysiac worshipper drank to bring on an ecstatic condition (Dio- 
dorus, IV, 3). 

42 1 Cor. chs. 8-10. See Jubilees 12 for a late Jewish view as to the absence of 
spirits or demons in idols. 

«Jn. 6:51-59. 



90 A STUDY OY THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

affirmation of the contention that the Lord's Supper as a rite was effica- 
cious in maintaining the mystical union of the believer with his Lord. 44 
The laying on of hands was also regarded by the early Christians as 
a means of obtaining the Spirit; in this way spiritual power could be 
transferred from one person to another. This was the method Jesus is 
said to have employed quite often in his healing of the sick. 45 His way 
of imparting a divine blessing to children was also of this nature, 46 
the idea being that by the placing of his hands upon their heads some 
spiritual power or substance would pass from him to them. The book 
of Acts gives a number of instances in which the Holy Spirit came upon 
those on whose heads the apostles and other Christian leaders placed 
their hands, 47 and it seems to have been a form of imparting the Spirit 
particularly to those who were being set aside for some special task and 
needed an unusual endowment of the Spirit. 48 Paul is significantly reti- 
cent on the subject, and it is suggested that the reason for this was the 
fact that this rite did not easily admit of a mystical interpretation. 49 
Since Paul does not mention the laying on of hands in his letters, he may 
not have observed this custom of the early Church and the statement in 
Acts 19 :6 would then be a misrepresentation. That the rite became more 
popular after the time of Paul is perhaps indicated in the prominence 
which it occupies in the Pastoral letters. 50 But to the author of Hebrews 
it was one of the rudiments of the Christian faith and was something 
beyond which he wanted his readers to go. 51 

44 The prifxara of vs. 63 is sometimes regarded as indicating that Jn. broke away 
from all ritual and believed that union with Christ could be attained merely through 
the reception of Jesus' divine message from heaven. But the context, especially 
vss. 60-62 favors the opinion that p^jiara refers to the immediately preceding discourse 
on the Eucharist. 

45 Mark 6:5; 8:23, 25; Luke 4:40; 23:11. The disciples later also healed in this way 
(Acts 9:12-17; 28:8). 

46 Mark, 10:16. 

47 Acts 8:17 ff.; 9:17; 19:6. The inability to impart the Holy Spirit which the 
author of Acts implicitly ascribes to Philip is doubtless unhistorical. The author 
is an ecclesiastic and endeavors to make Jerusalem the source of spiritual power. It 
was necessary for Peter and John to go down to Samaria to impart the Spirit because 
the author of Acts regarded the church at Jerusalem as the true and only source from 
which the stream of spiritual life should flow. Philip as a pneumatikos certainly 
should have had the power of imparting the Spirit as well as the leaders at Jerusalem. 

48 Acts 6:6; 13:3. 

49 Gardner, The Relig. Exper. of St. Paul, p. 103. 
50 1 Tim. 4:14; 5:22; II Tim. 1:6. 

51 Heb. 6:2. The case of the heavenly Christ laying his hand on the head of the 
Apocalyptist (Rev. 1:17) should be noticed in this connection. A similar instance 
occurs in Harpocration, 137, 7. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 91 

The origin of the custom may well have been Jewish. It was a 
practice among the Hebrew people employed especially when they desired 
to set aside a person or group of persons for some specific task that 
was thought to require more equipment than the normal faculties of 
the human soul could furnish. 52 But it had its roots in the common 
primitive belief that spiritual energy could be transmitted from one 
person to another through contact. It was simply the practice of sym- 
pathetic magic. 

A similar practice was the anointing of the head with oil. This 
was a custom that was in considerable vogue among the Jews and was 
employed by them especially when a man was appointed to a specific 
office. But in the New Testament it appears to have been used chiefly 
in the healing of the sick, the oil being regarded as possessing some 
power to drive away the demon of disease. 53 

Prayer too was considered a means of producing pneumatic states. 
And this was an idea common to both Jews and Greeks. 54 The author 
of Acts represents the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost as having been 
preceded by a season of prayer on the part of the disciples. 55 Prayer 
to him was the means of obtaining a knowledge of the divine will. 56 
The Spirit came to the Samaritans only after the apostles had prayed 
and had laid their hands on them; 57 and Peter obtained his visions on 
the housetop as he was in the act of prayer. 58 Prayer was commonly 
offered when men were set apart for some special work and needed 

52 Num. 8:10; 27:18; Deut. 34:9. 

53 Mark 6:13; Jas. 5:14. It should be noticed with reference to the latter passage 
that the name of Jesus was also used in connection with the anointing as ic was in 
the rite of baptism. The scanty reference to this practice in the New Testament 
would indicate that it was perhaps not extensively observed by the Christians. 

54 See for example I Sam. 8:6 f.; Is. 21:6; Hab. 2:1; Judith 11:17; and Jub. 12 
for the Jewish conception of obtaining visions or a knowledge of God's will through 
prayer. And it was believed by the Greeks, especially by the Gnostics, that if a man 
could not have visions in which his soul ascended to heaven, he could by prayer call 
down the deity or his Spirit to take possession of him (Reitzenstein, Poimandres, 
p. 178). The prayer to Hermes found in Kenyon, Gr. Papy., I, p. 116, is based on 
such a belief: "Come to me, O Heimes, cos ra /3pk<pr) els rds KcuAtas t&v yvvain&v." 

55 Acts 1:14. 

56 Acts 1:24. 
"Acts 8:15. 
68 Acts 10:9. 



92 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

spiritual equipment. 59 Moreover the power needed to exorcise demons 
was obtained through prayer. 60 With Paul prayer was not only a means 
of obtaining the Spirit; it was in itself a Spirit-operation. 61 The great 
longing and desire for the yet unattained, which Paul had in his heart, 
he ascribed to the agency of the Spirit and believed that the Spirit was 
active in aiding a man to pray aright. 62 According to his opinion there 
were evidently two kinds of prayer, distinguished by the degree of 
their inspiration: (1) the prayer that was offered under such intense 
emotion that the human consciousness was lost, — this he calls praying 
in the spirit; and (2) the prayer in which a man still retained the power 
of understanding. 63 James believed that prayer had healing power 
and that the prayer of a righteous man had special potency. 64 

In ancient times fasting was frequently associated with prayer 65 
and was considered also as a method of securing spiritual power. The 
reason why fasting was connected with pneumatic conditions was the 
effect which it had upon the physical organism, as well as the sense of 
morbid exaltation which it thereby produced and which rendered the 
seeing of spectral beings, from which power or spiritual knowledge could 
be gained, more facile. The importance which was attached to fasting 
as a religious act by the Jews is well known. 66 But fasting as a means of 
bringing on pneumatic states was also practised by the Gentiles and 
was regarded as one of the strongest means of disturbing the normal 
functions of the mind and producing ecstatic visions. The Pythia 
among other things practised fasting for the sake of obtaining inspira- 
tion; 67 and Galen says that the dreams produced by fasting were clearer 
than any others. 68 

Among the Christians fasting was indulged in, at least according 
to Acts, when some great task was about to be undertaken or some new 
plan was to be inaugurated. Special divine power and guidance was 

59 Acts 6:6; 13:3; 14:23. 

60 Mark 9:29; Matthew 17:21. 

61 Rom. 8:15, 16. 

62 Rom. 8:26 f. 

63 1 Cor. 14:15. See also Eph. 6:18 and Jude 20 for references to the former of 
these two kinds of prayer. 
M Jas. 5:15. 16. 

65 Cf. Matthew 17:21; Luke 2:37; Acts 13:3; 14:23. See also IV Ez. 5:13; 9:24 f. 

66 See Dan. 10:2 flf.; II Bar. 12:5; 43:3. In IV Ez. 5:20 and 6:31, 35 we find in- 
stances of the prophet fasting before his ecstasy came upon him. 

67 Paus. I, 34; Philos., Life of Apollon. Tyan., 1. 

68 Comment, on Hippocrates, 1. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 93 

felt to be necessary for its proper execution. 69 Paul rarely refers to 
fasting, and when he does, he perhaps does not attach any spiritual 
significance to it, but uses the word rather in the sense of ordinary 
hunger and thirst. 70 At any rate fasting does not seem to figure very 
largely in his thinking. But when Mark wrote his Gospel, he felt the 
need of explaining why the Christians who originally did not fast, had 
adopted the custom. 71 And Matthew prefaces the active ministry of 
Jesus with a fast of forty days and regards this as a part of Jesus' pneu- 
matic training for his life-work. 72 His instructions in the Sermon on 
the Mount regarding the proper method of fasting presupposes the 
observance of the custom in the Church when he wrote his Gospel. 73 

While fasting was a sad and self-abnegating method of obtaining 
spiritual power, a more joyful means of producing ecstatic conditions 
was found in music. Jesus and his disciples sang a hymn just before 
they went out to Gethsemane, on which occasion Jesus was in special 
need of divine power. 74 It was evidently the custom among the Corin- 
thian Christians to engage in singing, Paul no doubt being a partici- 
pator. 75 And he urges the Ephesians and Colossians to arouse them- 
selves to ecstatic activities and fill themselves with divine Spirit by 
singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. 76 The singing of hymns must 
have been quite a general practice with the early Christians, as may be 
judged from the number of hymns that were already embodied in the 
New Testament books. 77 

The reason why music was connected with spirit-operations was 
the effect which it had upon the emotions. When the Christians sang 

69 Acts 13:2,3; 14:23. 

70 II Cor. 6:5; 11:27. Cf. I Cor. 4:11. The "fastings often" which Paul men- 
tions may refer to occasions when he lacked the means to provide himself with suf- 
ficient food, rather than that he indulged in fasting as a religious act. The reference 
to the Fast in Acts 27:9 would point merely to Paul's acquaintance with this Jewish 
custom, not necessarily to his observance of it. 

71 Mark 2:18-20. 

72 Matthew 4:2. 

73 Matthew 6:16 ff. 

74 Mark 14:26. 

75 1 Cor. 14:15, 26. In vs. 15 Paul makes it clear that singing was an operation 
of the Spirit, and it is to be inferred that this singing like tongues and the praying 
in the spirit was unintelligible. See Acts 16:25 for another reference to Paul's engag- 
ing in singing. 

76 Eph. 5:18 f.; Col. 3:16. That singing and music produced pneumatic states 
is here clearly asserted. 

77 The book of Revelation is especially rich in these Christian songs, some of 



94 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

their hymns, their emotions were mightily stirred both on account of 
the sounds produced and because of the tone of victory which the words 
embodied; and they, of course, could not explain such a feeling within 
them except on the grounds of spiritual agency. In this they were in 
accord with the beliefs of their time. The Jews believed that music 
inspired their prophets, 78 and that it could drive out evil spirits from men, 
as was the case, for example, with the casting out of Saul's evil spirit 
through David's musical skill. 79 The Greeks had a similar concep- 
tion and music formed a prominent part in the practices especially 
in the Orphic and Apollo cults. The music of the former they regarded 
as more ecstatic than that of the latter, for the Apolline music was more 
sober and did not affect the emotions so strongly; 80 and yet both were 
considered as possessing divine power. In the popular mind musical 
sounds were the voice of spirits or demons. Even Pythagoras is said 
once to have remarked that "the sound indeed which is given by striking 
brass is the voice of a certain demon contained therein." 81 Heirs of 
such notions, it is easy to see why the early Christians should have 
reckoned singing as a means of acquiring possession of the Spirit. 

The means of Spirit-possession thus far discussed have been con- 
cerned with appeals to the senses of touch, taste, and hearing. But 
the ancients also made appeals to the sense of sight. Moses lifted up 
the serpent in the wilderness and those who looked upon it lived. 82 The 
mysteries had as a part of their initiatory ceremony the kiroTTeia which 
consisted of the pictorial representation of scenes connected with the 
myth of the cult. The initiate who looked upon these sacred scenes 
was illumined and became identified with the deity. And perhaps in con- 
nection with this vision sacred exhortations explaining the mystic actions 
of the god were pronounced. In the Pseudo-Apuleian Asklepios we 
find a statement like this: "We rejoice that while in our bodies thou 
didst deify us by the sight of thyself. " 83 It is thought too that some of 

which are found in 4:11; 5:9 ff.; 11:17 f.; 12:10-12; 19:1-8. The infancy narratives of 
Luke contain several that were ascribed to the authorship of Mary, Zacharias, and 
Simeon. I Tim. 3:16 and II Tim. 2:11 ff. may also have been songs that were used 
by the Christians. 

78 1 Sam. 10:5; II Ki. 3:15. 

79 1 Sam. 16:23. 

80 See Farnell, Higher Aspects of Gr. Relig., p. 118. 

81 Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras. 

82 Num. 21:9. 

83 Reitzenstein, Archiv. f. Religionswissenschaft, 1914, pp. 393-7. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 95 

the mysteries employed bright lights in order to produce a powerful 
emotional impression upon the initiates; and this may be what Lucius 
refers to when he says: "At midnight I beheld the sun radiating white 
light." 84 

The Christians evidently also appealed to the sense of sight, but 
merely in a figurative sense. In their case it was not an exhibition of 
material objects or scenes, but an appeal to the historical imagination 
stated in terms of the eTOTrrela. Paul reminds the Galatians that he 
had placarded (irpoeypa<pri) the crucified Christ before their eyes. 85 
The passages in John in which Jesus is represented as saying that he 
would be "lifted up," of course, refer to his crucifixion; and yet the idea 
of illumination and salvation by sight is here present. Jesus, the Light 
of the world, was lifted up on the cross; those who look upon that cross 
shall become sons of light. 86 The author of I Peter recommends the 
sight of good conduct in Christians as a means of converting the unbe- 
lieving. 87 And the author of II Peter represents the chief of the apostles 
as an €tottt]s of the majesty of Christ which manifested itself at the 
transfiguration. 88 It seems clear then that the Christians described 
certain features of the life of Christ in such a vivid way that they figura- 
tively presented them to their hearers' sight. The result, of course, 
was an emotional experience, which because of its intensity, was as 
usual ascribed to the work of the Spirit. 89 

Finally, faith was reckoned as a means of bringing on ecstatic con- 
ditions. It was felt that a man had to have a proper disposition or soul 
before he could enter into communion with the deity, and faith repre- 
sented that attitude of receptivity and sense of trust and dependence 

84 Apuleius, Metam., XI, 23. 

85 Gal. 3:1. 

86 John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32 ff. Notice in particular how the discourse in 12:32ff. 
turns to the subject of light. Cf. II Cor. 4:4, 6; Heb. 6:4; 10:32. It is also note- 
worthy how the author of Acts connects Paul's conversion with a vision of a bright 
light. 

87 1 Pet. 2:12; 3:2. The significant point to be noticed here is the use of the 
word, kiroTTTevoi. 

88 II Pet. 1:16 ff. 

89 Whether visions in the technical sense were a means of producing ecstatic 
conditions is rather doubtful. They were rather the result of spirit-possession. Yet 
the longing for the vision-experience and the expectancy which a belief in visions 
wrought in a man's soul would tend to bring on a state of ecstatic vision. Men gen- 
erally find that for which they are looking and hoping, especially when it belongs to 
the spiritual or immaterial universe. 



96 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

which were requisite before the deity or his Spirit would take up his 
abode in the soul. The Jews made faith practically synonymous with 
faithfulness, 90 and believed that the faithful observance of the law 
brought man into proper relation with God. The Greeks however had 
rather the idea that a man could become united with the deity through 
sympathy of spirit, and they made faith an abiding disposition of the 
soul that brought it into harmony with the deity. 91 

With the Christians faith was a necessary condition to the recep- 
tion of the Spirit. Only believers could obtain possession of the Spirit. 
But various Christian groups evidently differed somewhat in then- 
idea as to the inevitability of the possession of the Spirit following upon 
a profession of faith. According to the popular conceptions, as repre- 
sented for example in Acts, 92 a man might become a believer and yet 
not be seized by the Spirit. Since the activity of the Spirit was con- 
fined to certain spectacular phenomena that manifested themselves only 
on special occasions or in certain individuals, the gift of the Spirit was 
in this sense not the universal possession of all believers. The repre- 
sentation in the Gospels accords in the main with this view of the mat- 
ter. The disciples are described as believing in Jesus long before his 
death, and yet with the exception of several special occasions as when 
Jesus sent them out to preach and heal, or when Peter made his con- 
fession, 93 they seemingly did not have possession of the Spirit. Luke 
is particularly specific on this point. 94 And even the Gospel of John 
defers the acquiring of the Spirit on the part of the disciples until after 
the glorification of Jesus. 95 

With Paul faith was not merely a profession of belief in the identi- 
fication of Jesus with the Apocalyptic Messiah; it meant also a belief 
in the death of Jesus on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, and 
his exaltation to heaven. It was by virtue of these experiences of Jesus 
that the power of his name became established and acquired a potency 
that far surpassed the strength of any other being in the universe, 
spiritual or otherwise. 96 It was by faith that a man became mystically 
united with this dying and rising deity and acquired possession of the 

90 See e. g. Hab. 2:4. 

91 See Farnell, Higher Aspects of Gr. Relig., pp. 142 ff. with the authorities cited 
there. 

92 Notice how faith and the Spirit are brought together in Acts 6:5; 11:24. 

93 Mark 6:7 ff.; Matthew 16:17. 

94 Luke 24:49. 

95 John 7:39. 

98 Rom. 10: 8 ff.; I Cor. 15:1 ff.; Phil. 2:9-11. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 97 

power of his name. It was thus that a man obtained the indwelling 
Christ, 97 and was justified in the sight of God. 98 Such a conception 
of faith is an indication that on this point also Paul allied himself more 
closely with Hellenistic mysticism than with his Jewish antecedents. 99 
And holding such a notion, it is natural that he should regard the Spirit 
as the universal possession of believers. Everyone who received the 
message of faith which he preached regarding the crucified and risen 
Lord Jesus, would receive the Spirit, Gentiles as well as Jews. 100 The 
gift of the Spirit came in response to the believer's faith. It was when 
men through faith became sons of God that He sent His Spirit into 
their hearts. 101 

Since faith occupied such a central and prominent place in Paul's 
thinking, one is led to think that sacraments would have a correspond- 
ingly subordinate place in his view of the spiritual life. And evidence 
might be pointed out that he did place but little confidence in the efficacy 
of any external rite. One can even go so far as to say that had it 
not been for the efficacy which he believed faith in the power of Jesus' 
name had in the baptismal rite, he would doubtless not have considered 
baptism as of any greater value than circumcision. Yet he did evi- 
dently believe that the sacraments served a practical purpose and that 
they did have the power, of course as a result of the believer's faith, 
but also as a result of the divine potency in the water and name used 
in baptism and in the elements used in the Eucharist, to stir up the 
emotions and hence to produce ecstatic conditions. In spite of the 
fact that he believed that without faith no external ceremony would 
avail, there is after all no real contradiction between his use of the sacra- 
ments and his doctrine of faith. Faith, as we have just pointed out, 
was the attitude of soul which a man of necessity had to take toward the 
dying and rising deity, Christ, before the Spirit would enter his body, 
but this did not preclude the belief in the possibility of inducing the 
Spirit by the use of external means to enter a man when once he believed. 
We make a mistake when we think that Paul believed that the Spirit 
could be obtained in only one way. The large number of means referred 
to above which the Christians employed to induce and stimulate Spirit- 

97 Eph. 3:17. 

98 Rom. 5:1; Gal. 2:15 ft.; et al. 

99 See especially Bousset, Relig. des Jud., pp. 235 ff. and 514 ff.; and Kyrios Chris- 
tos, pp. 174-180. In the latter reference a large number of parallels in Greek, Neo- 
Platonic and Hermetic literature to Paul's conception of faith will be found. 

100 Gal. 3:2, 14; Rom. 3:22. 

101 Gal. 4:6; cf. Rom. 8:14 ff. 



98 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

activities is an indication that they thought that a man could obtain the 
Spirit in various ways. Of course, the man had to be a believer, and 
according to Paul he could doubtless acquire possession of the Spirit 
simply through faith without any external stimulus. And yet this would 
not necessarily prevent Paul from believing that external stimulation 
such as the rites of baptism and the Lord's Supper as well as the preach- 
ing of the gospel could really aid a man in his spiritual life. Since faith 
was so fundamental, he of course stressed the idea of the necessity of 
faith, especially when his Judaistic enemies compelled him to do so; 
but he may nevertheless at the same time have believed in the effica- 
cious influence of external means in the development of the Christian 
life. 

The prominence which faith occupies in the religious notions of 
the Johannine literature is one of the outstanding features of these 
books. Faith is regarded here as in the Pauline literature as the pre- 
condition of receiving the blessings of the Spirit. If a man believes 
in the Christ, the embodied Logos, he obtains eternal life. And this 
life comes by the possession of the Spirit, for the Spirit is the life-pro- 
ducer. 102 Again faith unites the believer in a mystic union with the 
Father or the Son; 103 and when a man thus has the Father or Son, he 
receives a spiritual entity within him 104 that produces new life and works 
a regenerating process in his soul. 105 

How faith produced ecstatic states is not difficult to understand. 
When a man professed his conviction that Jesus, the Lord of spirits, 
could drive out and overcome the demons within him, there must have 
come to him an overpowering sense of victory and joy. Or when he 
became convinced that he was united to the dying and rising deity, 
Christ, such a faith must have appealed equally as much to his emo- 
tions. Or again when through the preaching of the gospel a man believed 
that he had obtained a vision of the glory of God and a knowledge of 
the way to heaven, the intellectual "emotion" thus produced must have 
been extraordinary. What more natural than that faith should come 
to be regarded as the cause of these phenomena, inexplicable on any 
other grounds than that of spiritual agency. 

102 John 6:63. 

103 1 John 4:15; 5:10 ff. 

104 Notice that according to the Johannine conception God is conceived of as a 
being of spiritual substance (John 4:24). 

105 Eternal life as the result of faith is a constant theme of the Gospel. See John 
3:15, 16, 36; 6:47; 20:31 el al. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 99 

In Rom. 10:13-15 we have a hint as to the method used by Paul 
and perhaps by the other Christian leaders for the stimulation of spiritual 
activities. If we read the questions in the reverse order from that in 
which they are given, we get the method of their procedure. First comes 
the apostle, the one who is sent, with his message. His preaching is heard 
and the people give heed to his words. This leads to faith in the hea- 
venly Christ, and as the result of this faith the power in the name of 
this heavenly Lord is appealed to as an aid in overcoming the evil forces 
in the world. This name is called upon in baptism, in prayer, in singing, 
and in other rites and practices of the cult, and the believer obtains a 
new power or entity in his life that frees him from the sin and fear and 
evil powers that had enslaved him. This was doubtless the procedure 
and these the means whereby a Christian of the first century obtained 
possession of the Spirit and was saved. 



100 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 



CHAPTER V 

The Believer as Pneumatikos: The Benefit of Spirit-Possession 

This chapter has to do with the conception which the early Christians 
held as to what they received when they obtained possession of the 
Spirit. We have already in the preceding two chapters incidentally 
referred to the results of Spirit-endowment, but here it is necessary to 
deal with the matter in greater detail. And the distinction should 
be made that we are concerned not with the forms of Spirit-activity, 
which were dealt with in chapter three, but with the benefit or benefits 
which the Christians believed accrued to them by virtue of their posses- 
sion of the Spirit. 

It is at once noticeable that the various writers of the New Testa- 
ment books have somewhat different ideas as to what the Christians 
gained by Spirit-possession. And this divergence of view, as was also 
the variation in their opinion as to what constituted a Spirit-opera- 
tion, 1 was due partly to a difference in innate temperament, partly to 
a difference in their present pneumatic experiences, and partly to a 
difference in their past religious training. Their present religious 
experiences they interpreted in the light of the impression which the 
Christian message and cult-practices made upon their emotions and 
in the light of what they believed to be the content or end of salvation. 
The appeal which the Christian faith and practice made upon the 
believer depended somewhat upon his emotional temperament; while 
the idea which he had of the content of salvation was derived from the 
religious notions of his age and constituted a part of his past religious 
inheritance and training. This will perhaps become clearer as we 
proceed with our investigation. 

We have noticed 2 that when the first group of Jesus' followers came 
to believe in his resurrection and in his lordship over the evil forces of 
the spiritual world which that involved, and identified the risen Jesus 
with the heavenly or Apocalyptic Messiah, ecstatic conditions arose 
among them; and these pneumatic experiences were interpreted in the 
light of the notions which they held as to the pouring out of the Spirit 
at the coming of the Messianic age. 3 They believed that the Spirit of 

1 See ch. 3, p. 68 ff. 

2 Ch. 3, p. 41 ff. 

3 See especially Joel 2:28 ff.; Zech. 12:10; and Text. Jud. 24. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 101 

God which the Messiah himself possessed was now sent down by him to 
them, and that it came not only as an aid in preparing them for the 
coming of the Messiah, but as a help in their inducing others to pre- 
pare for this to them imminent event. In other words they were 
beginning to enjoy the blessings of the Messianic age; 4 the power of 
performing miracles, the preaching of an inspired message, the prophe- 
sying of the future establishment of the Kingdom of God, the dreaming 
of dreams, the seeing of visions, the speaking in tongues, in fact, all 
the various ecstatic activities that arose among them were a sign that 
the promise of the Spirit which had been made by the prophets of old, 
especially by Joel, was being fulfilled. The first benefit then which the 
early Christians felt that they were receiving as pneumatikoi was that 
they were now, at least by anticipation, members of the Messianic 
kingdom. 5 

But in becoming members of the Kingdom they believed that they 
first had to sustain a proper relation to God. One could not enter the 
Kingdom so long as his sins were unforgiven and the law was not pro- 
perly observed; indeed the Messiah would not come until men had thus 
prepared the way for him. Forgiveness of sins could be obtained by 
repentance, by being baptized in the name of Jesus, and by receiving 
the gift of the Spirit. 6 The one who had the Spirit of Christ had the 
power which resided in his name, and could thus secure a blotting out 
of his sins. The Spirit aided in the keeping of the law and in the stimu- 
lating of pious conduct. The fear of God took possession of their 
hearts, and some, at least, of the Jewish Christians were as zealous in 
the observance of the temple ritual as the strictest Pharisee. 7 The 
Spirit then became a factor in the obtaining of a forgiveness of sins and 
in the keeping of the law. 

The Spirit also aided the early Christians in their endeavors to pre- 
pare others for the coming of the Messiah. Their inspired message 

4 See Weinel, Die Wirkungen u. s. w., pp. 42 ff. 

5 The value which they placed upon this membership may be seen in the state- 
ment in Matthew which ranks the one who occupies a very hum, 'e position in the 
Kingdom higher than John the Baptist who was the greatest of thos-. utside of the 
Kingdom. The reason for this was simply that the one in the Kingdom tu the Spirit 
which John and his followers lacked. See Matthew 11:11; Mark 1:8; Matt,,, v 3:11; 
Luke 3:16; John 1:26, 33; Acts 19:1-7. Evidently John's movement lacked the power 
of stirring the emotions to the point where the effects came to be regarded as Spirit- 
activities. 

6 Acts 2:38; 3:19-20. 

7 See Acts 2:43, 46; 3:1 ff.; 15:24; Gal. 2:12. Cf. also Eth. En. 49:3 f.; 61:11; 
Ps. Sol. 17:42, where the Spirit and a virtuous life are conjoined. 



102 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

led men to repent of their sins and to desire baptism. They were given 
wisdom, courage and power by the Spirit for the planning and prosecu- 
tion of the work which was still to be done before the Messiah would 
come. 8 Their performance of miracles caused many to glorify God and 
their power of exorcising demons in particular demonstrated that the 
power of the Lord of spirits was residing in them, and that he who had 
this power was safe from the demons and evil forces about him. 

So the benefits derived by the early Jewish Christians from the 
endowment of the Holy Spirit, according to their viewpoint, consisted 
of certain ecstatic experiences, from which they judged themselves to 
have become members of the Messianic kingdom and to have obtained 
forgiveness of sins for themselves, and power and guidance to lead others 
into the Kingdom. And it should be noticed that their idea as to what 
benefits they derived from the possession of the Spirit depended, of course 
in the first place upon the nature of their own ecstatic experiences, but 
also on the other hand upon their conception of the spiritual endowment 
of the Messiah in particular, and of their prophets in general. The 
Messiah, they thought, was endowed with the spirit of wisdom and 
might, of knowledge and the fear of Jehovah. 9 He possessed the spiritual 
equipment for preaching glad tidings of deliverance, and performing 
miraculous deeds. 10 He sat upon a throne as the Lord of spirits and 
was anointed with the spirit of righteousness. 11 The prophet, they 
believed, had the privilege of entering ecstatic states in which he saw 
visions, heard the voice of angels, received messages from God, and 
felt as if his soul had been transported to heaven. 12 

When the Christians became convinced of their own spiritual 
endowment and came to believe that the Spirit which was in them was of 
the same nature and substance as the Spirit that possessed the Messiah, — 
for since it came from the heavenly Messiah, it must of necessity be 
the same as his in substance, — then, of course, they could do naught 
but ascribe the same kind of results and benefits to the Spirit working 

8 Acts 1:8; 4:8, 31; 9:31; 13:24; 15:28; 16:6, 7 et al. Cf. I Cor. 2:7-10; 12:28. 
According to the representation in Acts, one might almost call the Spirit the guardian 
angel of the Church, a notion that corresponds to the Roman idea of the genius pub- 
licus. See also Rev. 1:20; 3:7 et al. 

9 Is. 11:2. 

10 Is. 35:5 f.; 61:1 ff.; Matthew 11:5; Luke 4:18 ff. 
u Eth. En. 62:2. 

12 See in particular the experiences of Ezekiel mentioned in his prophecies: 2:2; 
3:12; 11:1 et al, as well as those referred to in the Apocalypses of Enoch, Baruch, and 
Ezra 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 103 

in them as they supposed were issuing from the Messiah. They too had 
wisdom and power in the performance of their duties as members of the 
Messianic Kingdom; they too had the fear of Jehovah in their hearts 
and the desire to lead a pious life; they too had power over spirits and 
demons; they too had a consciousness that their call was one of preach- 
ing the gospel, performing miracles, and prophesying. And in a similar 
way they felt that since the Messianic age would be one in which pro- 
phecy would play a great part, 13 they would also be partakers of the 
benefits which were currently ascribed to the ecstatic experiences of 
the prophet. 14 Thus we see how the construction which the early 
Christians put upon their spiritual endowment depended very largely 
upon their conception of the heavenly Messiah and of the prophetic 
office, which they had formed as a result of their religious heritage and 
training. 

When we turn to a consideration of what the Gentile Christians 
regarded as the benefit of their Spirit-endowment, we have to deal 
first of all with Paul's idea of the matter, for he stands at the turning- 
point, as it were, where the Jewish idea of salvation was being trans- 
planted by the Gentile conception. 

Paul's Christian life began with an ecstatic experience in which, 
according to Acts, he had a vision of the heavenly Christ. 15 This vision 
must have been the result of his contact with the Christians whom 
he had been persecuting. What the processes were by which his soul 

13 Acts 2:16 ft. 

14 The chief benefit to the prophet of his pneumatic experiences was the attain- 
ment of divine knowledge or revelation. For revelation through vision see Acts 
7:55; 9:1, 10, 12 (cf. 2:17); 10:3, 9; 11:5, 12; 16:9; 18:9; 22:17; 23:11; 27:23; Mark 
9:2 ff.; Luke 24:31; 24:37, 39; Heb. 11:27; Rev. 1:12 ff.; et al. For revelation through 
angels see Matthew 1:20, 24; 2:13, 19; Luke 1:11; 1:13, 26; 2:9; John 12:29; Acts 
7:53; 8:26; 10:3; 12:8; 23:9; 27:23; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2; Rev. 1:1; 2:1; et al. For the 
transport of the soul to heaven, see II Cor. 12:2; Rev. 4:1 ff.; Matthew 4:1; Acts 
8:39: and cf. I Cor. 5:3; II Cor. 5:6; Heb. 11:5. For revelation through dreams see 
Matthew 1:20, 24; 2:12, 13, 19, 22; 27:19. For revelation through the eating of a 
book see Rev. 10:9 ff. For revelation through the prophetically inspired Jewish 
Scriptures consult Matthew 2:5, 15, 17, 23; Luke 18:31; Acts 1:16; 4:24; Rom. 16:25; 
II Tim. 3:16; I Pet. 1:11; Heb. 3:7; 10:15. The New Testament writers with the 
exception of the Apocalyptist (cf. Rev. 22:6, 16) did not regard their writings as in- 
spired, though they must have considered them to be helpful for the readers to whom 
they were addressed (see John 20:31; Col. 4:16; and II Pet. 3:15 ff. where some of 
the New Testament books, especially the Pauline letters, were already regarded as 
Scripture). 

15 Acts9:lff.;22:3ff.;26:2ff. 



104 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

in his relations with the Christians became stirred to the point of ecstasy 
we do not know, but at least he must in some way have come to the place 
where he was willing to admit that the identification of Jesus with the 
heavenly Messiah which the Christians had already made, was a matter 
of certitude, and that he was therefore bound to acknowledge this heav- 
enly being as his Lord. And this involved of course a belief in the 
death, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus. This acknowledgment on 
his part was doubtless the cause for the emotional experience in which 
he is said to have had a vision of Jesus in heaven, or in which, to quote 
his own words, "God called me through his grace to reveal his Son 
in me." 16 

It was on this occasion that Paul felt that a new power had entered 
his life. Especially when he was baptized did he feel a new emotion 
and elation in his soul. He now became a pneumatic person. Like 
the Jewish Christians whose circle he joined, he began to preach, to 
prophesy, to speak with tongues, to have ecstatic visions, to exorcise 
demons, etc. 17 He believed too that these pneumatic experiences were 
somehow connected with his faith in his heavenly Lord, and hence he 
ascribed them to the influence of the Spirit which the heavenly Christ 
sent into his heart and which was in fact the Spirit of this very being 
himself. 18 

When Paul came to believe that he had some of the spiritual sub- 
stance of the heavenly Lord in him, he as a result was convinced that 
he had power over every opposing spiritual being in the universe. As 
we have seen, 19 he believed that in virtue of his possession of the Spirit 
he Was united in a mystic bond with this exalted Lord and hence could 
claim the same power that his Lord possessed. Since Christ had over- 
come death and the powers of the underworld, he too had no need to 
fear these; 20 since Christ was the Lord of spirits, he could through his 

16 Gal. 1:16. Cf. I Cor. 12:3. In this vision we are not necessarily to think that 
Paul saw anything objectively real. It was an inner experience which he had and 
which the author of Acts interprets as an external reality, in accordance with the 
custom of the ancients who did not distinguish between the objective and subjective. 
We might add also that the interpretation which Paul put upon this experience was 
doubtless affected and tinctured by the Apocalyptic ideas regarding the Messiah which 
prevailed among some of the Jews of his day and with which he must have become 
familiar perhaps even before he met any Christians. 

17 Acts 9:20 ff.; Gal. 1:16; I Cor. 2:4; 13:2; 14:18; II Cor. 12:1 ff.; I Cor. 15:8; 
II Cor. 12:12; Rom. 15:19; I Thess. 1:5. 

18 1 Cor. 12:3; II Cor. 3:17. 

19 Ch. 3, p. 73 and ch. 4, pp. 85 f. and 87 f. 

20 Rom. chs. 6-8; I Cor. 15:50-53. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 105 

power subdue the demonic forces of sin and disease; 21 since Christ was 
the vicegerent of God in Heaven, he was safe from the elemental spir- 
its, 22 the principalities and powers of the air, and the hordes of evil 
spirits in heavenly places. 23 

It is clear that Paul regarded the possession of the Spirit of Christ 
both as a present advantage and as a future benefit. Of course he 
regarded his ecstatic experiences and his power over evil spirits as pres- 
ent advantages, but he did not stop at these popular ideas. The change 
which had come into his whole life, he attributed also to the work of 
the Spirit. He was now already in this life a new creature; 24 he was 
wearing the Spirit of Christ like a garment. 25 He was a new man. New 
life had come into his being; 26 at baptism he had been raised to newness 
of life. 27 In other words his whole inner life had been changed; he had 
made an abrupt break with the past history of his life. Whereas he 
had been dead because of sin, he was now alive; whereas he had been 
a slave to the law and to fear, he was now a freedman; 28 whereas he 

21 Rom. 6:1-11; I Cor. 12:9b; 11:30; cf. Rom. 8:2. Notice that in I Cor. 11:30 
Paul connects sickness with a lack of union with Christ, which is brought about if a 
man fails to observe the Lord's Supper properly. 

22 The aroLxeia (Gal. 4:3, 9; Col. 2:8, 20) were the demonic beings that resided in 
the elements of the world and were thought to bind men under a fatalistic law of 
necessity from which they could not free themselves without the aid of divine power 
or knowledge. On this subject see Case, Evol. of Ear. Xty, pp. 244 f. and the au- 
thorities cited there. Diels, Elementum, is especially worthy of mention. 

23 Eph. 1:21; 2:2; 6:10ff.; Rom. 8:38, 39; and cf. Slav. En. 20; Eth. En. 61:10; 
Test. Levi, 3. The heavenly bodies were deified and were quite generally regarded 
as holding men in a sort of bondage and as endangering the safe passage of the soul 
to its abode in heaven. For an idea as to what it must have meant for a man of Paul's 
day to have the power of conquering the evil forces and beings with which he thought 
he was surrounded, read Plutarch's essay on Superstition. 

24 II Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15. 

25 Eph. 4:24. 

26 Rom. 8:11, 13. 

"Rom. 6:4, 5; Col. 2:11, 12. 

28 Gal. 5:1, 18; II Cor. 3:17. Paul's emphasis upon the freedom of the Spirit- 
endowed man involved him in the charge of antinomianism, a charge that was doubt- 
less supported by the licentious conduct of some members of the cult who by their 
release from old social sanctions and restraints lost their self-control. Paul deals with 
this charge in Rom. 6 and Gal. 5. His idea is that a man who has the Spirit can not 
sin, for his mind is the mind of the Spirit which is holy. The flesh and sin have no 
more power over him since he has this new divine increment in his soul controlling 
all his actions. The Spirit works like an inner law; the believer's self or ego is sub- 
ject to it and acts according to its dictates (Gal. 5:18; Rom. 7:6; 8:2). The same idea 
occurs in I John 3 :6. 



106 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

had been a child of bondage, he was now a son in God's household; 29 
and whereas in his former life, living under the domination of the flesh, 
his life had issued in naught but impurities, excesses, and hatred of 
his fellowmen, he now was living an unselfish and virtuous life. 30 It 
was nothing else than Christ driving sin and Satan out of his heart and 
taking up his abode therein. 31 

But this inner change and transformation of life and this union 
with Christ could not be maintained without a struggle on man's part. 
It meant a severe battle with Satan and his hosts of demons. It was a 
contest against the chthonian, the earthly, the heavenly principalities 
and powers who were always trying to get possession of a man's heart 
or do him injury, and to sever his connection with Christ. 32 A man had 
to use all the weapons, spiritual weapons of course, which he possibly 
could, if he hoped to gain the victory. And notice that one of the chief 
weapons was the sword of the Spirit. 33 It seems then that Paul did 
not think that a man should hold his human powers completely in 
abeyance; he was to put forth his utmost energy in opposing the evil 
forces around him. And yet he was thoroughly convinced that it was 
the divine power or entity in the Christian that after all gained the 
victory for him. Without this divine insert a man's own powers would 
be unavailing. 

But Paul did not only believe that the endowment of the Spirit 
procured the believer present advantages; he held that the future had 
promise of far more glorious things. The present power and possession 

29 Rom. 8:16; Gal. 4:6. 

30 Gal. 5:16-25. Paul perhaps never went so far as the Greeks who deified some 
of the emotions and virtues such as shame, pity, fear, love, wisdom, etc. (Paus. I, 
17, 1; Plut. Cleom., 9). But he did regard the virtues as due to spiritual agency. 
This appears, besides the passage just cited, especially in I Cor. 4:10 and Gal. 6:1 
where he speaks of the "spirit of gentleness. " 

31 The idea of a god becoming incarnate in his worshippers, which Paul certainly 
approaches, is illustrated by the reference in Pausanias (IX, 39, 7) to the ministrants 
at the oracle of Trophonius at Lebadea in whom Hermes supposedly took his abode. 
And the same can be said with regard to the Bacchic mystae (Arist.. Eq. 408;. Fur- 
thermore, according to the thought of the day, it was felt that no good spirit could 
dwell with an evil spirit in the same body at the same time (Philo, Quis Rer. Div. 53; 
Hermas, Mand. 5, 1 & 2; 10, 2; 12, 5), and if a man could command the power of a 
good spirit that was stronger than the evil spirit within him, the latter would be dis- 
placed. 

32 Eph. 6:10 ff.; Rom. 8:38, 39. 
33 Eph. 6:17. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 107 

of the Spirit was merely an "earnest" of what the future had in store. 34 
The present life in Christ was simply a foretaste of the glorious life 
to come. There were still too many opposing forces both within and 
without a man to permit the life here in this world to be free from imper- 
fections and limitations. But the union with Christ in the Spirit not 
only gave assurance of a safe passage into the next world, for by the 
resurrection of Christ death had been conquered; 35 it also ensured a 
state of blessed immortality in the future. The believer's resurrection 
was assured by virtue of Christ's rising from the dead, 36 and eternal 
life was the reward of the one who in the present life cultivated the 
Spirit. 37 The future life would furthermore be one of close fellowship 
and communion with Christ in heaven, 38 the union begun on earth 
finding its full fruition there. Paul's Jewish connections manifest 
themselves in his idea of the future corporeal existence of the soul, for 
the Jews were unable to think of the soul as existing without the body. 
So Paul believed that in the future world a man would have a spiritual 
and immortal body that would accord with the changed circumstances 
and conditions of the future life and would yet furnish a fit embodiment 
for the soul. 39 

The chief advance which Paul made upon the Jewish Christians' 
conception of the benefit received from Spirit-endowment was his idea of 
the mystic union with the heavenly Christ which he believed the possession 
of the Spirit effected. This union brought the believer salvation, which 
consisted in being born again to divine sonship, in the securing of power over 
demons, and in the attainment of a life of blessed immortality. 40 With 
Paul salvation was not merely membership in the Messianic kingdom 
or a proper external convenantal relationship with God; it was the inner 
transformation of body and soul which came as the result of the posses- 
sion of a new divine increment in his life. It was not only a national 

34 II Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:14; Rom. 8:23. 

35 Rom. 6:8 ff.; I Cor. 15:57. 

36 1 Cor. 15:20 ff. One is here reminded of a certain Egyptian text: "As surely 
as Osiris lives so surely shall his disciple" (Cumont. Relig. orientales dans l'fimp. 
Romain, p. 121), which means that the union with the deity made the devotee a 
partaker of the immortal life of the god. 

"Gal. 6:8. 

38 Phil. 1:23. 

39 1 Cor. 15:35 ff.; Phil. 3:21. 

40 Gunkel is of the opinion that Paul's idea of the possession of the Spirit included 
three main advantages: (1) a new state of existence; (2) ethical strength; and (3) 
the charismata (Die Wirkungen u.s.w., pp. 84-9). 



108 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

salvation through the mediation of a Messiah, but an individual redemp- 
tion through union with a dying and rising deity. It need no more 
than be pointed out that this conception of salvation agrees with that 
promised by the mystery cults and shows how Paul's idea of the con- 
tent of salvation was related to his contact with the Gentile thought- 
world. 41 

The Synoptic writers have little to say about the benefits to the 
believer of Spirit-possession; they are chiefly concerned with the per- 
son and work of the historical earthly Jesus. But we may infer from 
the few references to the operations of the Spirit that they in general 
regard the endowment of the Spirit as having a value for the accom- 
plishment of two particular ends. First of all, the believer is empowered 
by the possession of the Spirit to cast out demons, to heal the sick and to 
preach the gospel. 42 It is Mark who emphasizes especially the power 
of the disciples over demons, and this element in Mark seems to have 
passed over into the Gospels of Matthew and Luke when they used Mark 
as one of their literary sources. Matthew seems to stress rather the equip- 
ment of the disciples for their work as witnesses and preachers of the 
gospel, and Luke follows him in this aspect of Spirit-endowment. 43 In 
the second place, the Spirit would be a help to the disciples in time of 
persecution. If in the prosecution of their Christian work and propa- 
ganda they were arrested and brought before the rulers for judgment, 
the Spirit would be their prompter and would help them in making 
their defence. He would give them courage and power not to deny 
their faith in Christ. 44 The Synoptists also give an account of certain 
vision-experiences which the disciples had of the risen Jesus, but although 
these experiences doubtless formed the starting-point for their belief in 
their spiritual endowment, they yet do not ascribe them to the activity 
of the Spirit, no doubt because they believed that the Spirit came only 
after the ascension of Jesus. 

41 See Hermetic Corpus, I, 26; Reitzenstein, DieHellen. Myster. Relig., pp. 113-i. 
Also Case, Evol. of Ear. Xty, ch. 9, where the idea of the attainment of immortality 
through enlightenment and union with the deity as held by the so-called religions of 
redemption is presented. An extended and valuable bibliography on this subject 
will also be found in the footnotes to the chapter. It might be noted however that 
immortality was also a part of the thought-world of late Judaism, but this may have 
been due to HelLnistic influences (Wis. 2:22, 23; 3:4, 14, 15; 5:15 ff; 8:13, 17). 

42 Mark 6:7 ff.; cf. Luke 10:17-20. 

43 See especially Matthew 23:19, 20; Luke 24: 47-49. 

"Mark 13:11; Luke 12:12; cf. Luke 21:15. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 109 

It should be noticed in passing that the idea of the Synoptists too 
as to what benefit the disciples derived from Spirit-possession arose from 
their experiences or from the conceptions which prevailed in the Church 
of their day regarding the kind of help which they thought they needed 
from the Spirit. When these Gospels were written, it is evident that 
the exorcism of demons, the healing of the sick, and the preaching of 
the gospel were the main activities of the Christians. And they were 
meeting with opposition and hostility in their efforts to propagate 
their cult teachings and practices. It was along these lines that the 
Spirit-activities manifested themselves, and it was also for these pur- 
poses that the need of the Spirit's help was felt. They got the kind 
of help that they were looking and hoping for. 

The author of Acts continues the same thought of the benefit of 
the Spirit which he presented in his Gospel. The Spirit benefited the 
Christians in that it gave them power to perform miracles, to see 
visions, and to prophesy. But the advantage of having the Spirit lay 
chiefly in the help it gave to the Christians in their missionary work. 
It filled them with unlooked-for boldness and courage in the preaching 
of the gospel; it acted as a speaker in time of their defence before rulers; 
it guided them in their plans of work and was the evidence for the sanc- 
tion of the Gentile mission. 45 The enthusiasm and joy which charac- 
terized the early Church and which doubtless formed one of the chief 
reasons why the disciples came to think of themselves as spiritually 
endowed, were attributed to the Spirit. 46 The Spirit then was chiefly 
valuable for the help it afforded the furtherance of the cult; and this, 
namely, the spread of Christianity from the Jewish to the Gentile world 
and its expansion from a national to a universal type of religion, was 
what the author wanted to depict. This expansive movement was of 
such an extraordinary nature that it could not be accounted for except 
on the basis of the guidance and cooperation of the Spirit. 

The author in a negative way shows that the possession of the Spirit 
did not bring any material or financial reward. The Spirit was worth 
more than silver or gold, yet could not be obtained by lucre. 47 It 
furthermore was opposed to covetousness; 48 in fact it made men depre- 

45 Acts 4:31; 4:8; 15:28; 16:6, 7; 13:44; 11:15 ff. The Holy Spirit was regarded as 
especially active in the choice of leaders (13:2; 20:28). 

46 Acts 2:46; 5:41; 8:8. In this the author of Acts follows Paul who also connects 
joy with spiritual endowment (Rom. 14:17; Gal. 5:22; I Thess. 1:6). See also John 
15:11; 16:20 ff. 

47 Acts 3:6; 8:19 ff. 
48 Acts5:lff. 



110 A STUDY OF THE SPIE IT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

date the value of the things they possessed. 49 One wonders whether 
the author was not endeavoring to answer the charge that was perhaps 
brought against the Christian teachers and leaders of his day, namely, 
that like the Cynic and Stoic teachers they were seeking remuneration 
for their inspired services. 50 

The author of Hebrews pictures the present advantages of the Spirit 
partly in terms of the popular conceptions 51 and partly in terms of an 
abiding relationship with God. 52 Pauline influence or resemblance 
is seen in the author's belief that ordinarily the possession of the Spirit 
was permanent and that the present endowment of the Spirit was merely 
a foretaste of the future life. 53 As a rule the author states the benefits 
of Spirit-possession in the terminology of the old Jewish dispensation. 
A new convenant was established between God and the believer, a 
covenant of grace, written not on tablets of stone but on the hearts and 
minds of men; and by virtue of this covenant the believer had free and 
direct access to the throne of God. 54 The Spirit was the medium through 
which this covenant was revealed. 55 As for the future the author held 
out to the believer the idea of a Sabbath rest or of an eternal inheri- 
tance, which was the Jewish way of expressing the conception of eternal 
life. 56 And yet the notion of the Spirit as being the revealer of divine 
truth, and of the believer as being illumined by the Spirit, 57 evinces an 
acquaintance on the part of the author with Gentile thought, and par- 
ticularly with that of the Gnostic type. 

In Revelation the author, of course, so far as his own Spirit-en- 
dowment was concerned, believed that the power of ecstatic vision and 
of prophecy was the chief benefit. The Spirit was speaking through 
him and thus revealing the divine will. 57 * He was equipped in this 
way to be a witness of Jesus: "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of 

49 Acts 4:32. 

50 Paul evidently was trying to avoid having this charge brought up against 
him (II Cor. 11:7 ff. I Cor. 9:18 ff.), and this was doubtless the reason why he refused 
to take support from his churches, preferring to work for his own livelihood. 

51 Heb. 2:4. 
52 Heb. 10:15 ff. 
53 Heb. 6:4-6. 
M Heb. 10:19 ff. 
65 Heb. 9:8; 10:15. 
^Heb. 4:9; 9:15. 
"Heb. 6:4; 10:32. 

5?a Rev. 1 .10; 2:7; 4:2; 21 :10. It should be noticed that the Apocalyptist receives 
his knowledge or revelation by the ascent of his soul to heaven. This, of course, was 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 111 

prophecy." 58 But so far as the benefits derived by the believer were 
concerned, the author conceives of these as accruing chiefly to the 
future life of the believer when he through obedience to the message 
which the Spirit was revealing by the mouth of the Apocalyptist, 59 
through his overcoming in this life the evil forces around him, 60 and 
through his faithfulness amidst the corruption and persecution of this 
world 61 should become a partaker of the blessings of the Messianic age. 
The author could offer very little satisfaction and comfort to the believer 
in this present world because he was writing at a time when the Chris- 
tians were under severe persecution. The blessings which he denotes 
are in part: partaking of the fruit of the tree of life; receiving the crown 
of life; escape from the second death; eating hidden manna; the gift 
of a new name; authority over the nations and the gift of the morning 
star, Jesus; the privilege of being clothed in white garments, of having 
one's name in the book of life and of having this name confessed by the 
Son before the Father and his angels, of being made a pillar in the tem- 
ple of God, of having the name of God, of the new Jerusalem, and of the 
Son written upon him, of having fellowship with Christ, of reigning 
with him on a throne, of drinking of the water of hfe, of being granted 
divine sonship, and of entrance into the Holy City. 62 These blessings 
accord with the author's notion of salvation, and evince not only an 
acquaintance on his part with the Messianic ideas of the age, but an 
influence particularly of astrological conceptions upon his thinking. 63 
In the Johannine literature the stress is placed upon the intellectual 
rather than the emotional values of Spirit-possession. The thing that 
was of importance to the Johannine circle of Christians was not an 
emotional experience, but the satisfaction of a thirst for divine knowl- 

in general accord with Jewish Apocalyptic ideas. And yet, since in other ways the 
author of Revelation shows the influence of astrological notions, it may very well be 
that his ecstasy had some relation to the idea revealed in the Hermetic literature that 
since none of the deified heavenly bodies could leave heaven, the soul had to go up 
to heaven to receive divine knowledge (Hermes Trismegistos, X, 25; Reitzenstein, 
Poimandres, p. 138). 
68 Rev. 19:10. 

59 Rev. 2:7 et al. 

60 Rev. 2:17 etal. 

61 Rev. 3:10 et al. 

62 References to these benefits will be found in the following passages: Rev. 
2:7, 10, 11; 20:6-14; 21:8; 2:17, 27, 28; 22:16; 3:5 (cf. Hermas, Sim. 9:13); 3:12, 20, 
21; 20:4; 21:6, 7, 27. 

63 See Boll, Aus der Offenbarung Johannis, pp. 2 ff . 



112 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

edge, a knowledge that would bring them truth, life, light and freedom. 
The chief benefit of the Spirit was a gnosis, the possession of which 
was considered necessary for salvation. 64 The Spirit is here conceived of 
as the Spirit of truth, because he is the revealer of the true gnosis, 65 and 
would guide the disciples into a right understanding of the significance of 
Jesus' person and saving work. 66 The one who possessed this gnosis was 
bound in a mystic union to the heavenly Christ and became as it were 
the embodiment of this divine being. 67 But the Spirit is also the life- 
giver, and hence the acquiring of eternal life, which according to John 
begins here and now, is one of the benefits of the possession of the Spir- 
it. 68 This life comes as a result of faith in the divine message revealed 
by the Logos and means that those who receive this revelation are sons 
of God, born of the Spirit to become, not slaves of darkness and ignorance, 
but children of freedom and light. 69 And this sonship besides implying 
the possession of freedom involves also the ethical attitude of love and 
sympathy toward one's brethren. 70 Thus we see that such words as 
knowledge, life, truth, freedom, love, represent what the Johannine 
books regard as the benefits of Spirit-possession, at least in so far as 
present salvation is concerned. 

But the endowment of the Spirit also had a value, according to 
John, for the work of Christian propaganda. It is the Spirit through 
whom the believer will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of 
judgment. 71 In time of trouble and persecution the Christians will have 
in the Spirit a Comforter in their hearts and an Advocate before the 
Father. 72 He would aid them in the bearing of their testimony and 
would take the place of Jesus after his departure. 73 

64 The mistake should not be made of tJiinking that gnosis meant to the people 
of that age a body of knowledge derived from the exercise of the normal rational 
faculties. Both the Gnostics and the Christians thought of gnosis as knowledge 
that was revealed by a divine being from heaven. 

65 John 14:17; 15:26; I John 4:6; 5:6. 

66 John 16:13. 

67 John 15:4; I John 2:14, 28. 

68 John 4:14; 6:63. Cf. I Pet. 3:18. 

69 John 6:33; 1:13; 8:35, 36, 47; 12:36. 

70 John 13:34; I John 3:10; 4:7-5:3. 

71 John 16:8. 

72 John 16:32, 33; 14:16; I John 2:1. This idea is also found in Paul, it should 
be noticed (Rom. 8:26-7). 

73 John 15:26, 27; 16:7. The failure of the Messiah to appear upon the clouds 
as the early Christians had expected, led to a spiritualizing of the Messianic concep- 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 113 

As for future blessings accruing to Spirit-possession, the author 
gives assurance to the believer of victory over death and of a firm hope 
of immortality. 74 Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and the one 
who is joined with him shall partake of his life. 75 The heavenly Christ 
has gone on before to heaven, and the soul of the believer will ascend 
to the mansions which the heavenly Christ has prepared, conducted 
safely thither through the spheres by him or by the Spirit who is his 
representative or proxy. 76 In heaven the believer will behold the glory 
of Christ, thus continuing the enlightened state and the communion 
with the Lord which he had enjoyed on earth. 77 

Even a superficial investigation of these Johannine ideas reveals 
the fact at once that there is a connection here with Gnostic notions. 
The prominence given to such ideas as truth, sonship, light, a divinely 
revealed gnosis, etc., and the conception of the soul's ascent to heaven 
are clear indications that the writer was familiar with the Gnostic idea 
of salvation. 78 

A few general observations might be made here with reference to 
the subject of this chapter: 

1. In the first place, the early Christians' conception of the benefits 
which they believed they received as a result of their Spirit-endowment 
was conditioned by the nature of their emotional experiences and by 
their ideas as to the content of salvation. If their emotional experiences 
were sporadic, their idea of the benefit received from the Spirit would be 
of a like character. If however they felt that a permanent change 
had come into their lives, they would interpret the benefit of Spirit- 



tion, and the author of John conceives of the Spirit as the representative of the Messiah 
come to take his place. 

74 John 11:23-26. 

75 John 6:22-65; 15:1 ff 

76 John 14:2,3. 

77 John 17:24. 

78 On Gnostic ideas see Case, Evol. of Ear. Xty, pp. 326 ff. and the authorities 
cited there. Foucart, Encyc. of Relig. and Eth., art., "Demons and Spirits (Egyp- 
tian), " describes the magical and other precautions which the Egyptians took in order 
to secure the safe passage of the soul to the other world. Porphyry (Stobaeus, Eclo- 
gues, II, p. 171) describes the soul's ascent through the seven spheres. Dieterich (Eine 
Mithrasliturgie, p. 199) asserts that every philosopher and religious thinker in the 
Greek world since Plato, who believed in the immortality of the soul, spoke of 
the soul's ascent to heaven. See also his Abraxas, pp. 43 ff . on the 7 archons of the 
Gnostic system. For the idea of the soul's ascent to heaven in the mysteries see 
Wendland, Die hellenistisch-romisch. Kultur, pp. 170-6. 



114 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

possession likewise as something that was abiding and continuous. And 
so it was with their ideas as to what constituted salvation. If they 
were Jews and believed that salvation consisted in the forgiveness of 
sins and membership in the Messianic kingdom, of course, they would 
believe that that was what the endowment of the Spirit would secure 
for them. But if they were Greeks and believed that an immortal 
life of bliss through union with the deity constituted salvation, then to 
their minds this would be the benefit derived from a possession of the 
Spirit of the deity. Whenever pneumatic conditions arose, they be- 
lieved that they thereby obtained salvation, and they got the kind of 
salvation for which they were looking. 

2. In the second place, the benefits which the Christians claimed 
to have received from the Spirit were all in some way connected with 
the heavenly Christ. 79 It was natural, since the ecstatic conditions 
attributed to Spirit-activities usually followed upon a profession of 
faith in the heavenly Lord Jesus and baptism in his name, that the bene- 
fits thought to be derived from these activities should be ascribed to 
the power of the heavenly Christ, who however because of his exalted 
position could act and work in the world only through his Spirit or 
double. 80 And hence when these ecstatic conditions arose, the Chris- 
tians interpreted their origin and cause to be due to the presence of some 
of Christ's spirit-substance in them or to the influence of his personal 
Spirit upon them. 81 They thought that a new element had been added to 

79 Christ is represented as possessing the Spirit and dispensing it (Acts 2:33; 
14:3; Rev. 1:1, John 20:22; Tit. 3:6; Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:9; I Cor. 2:16; 12:3). He is 
for Faul the source of his spiritual endowment (I Cor. 1:24; 3:5; II Cor. 12:1; 13:3, 4; 
Gal. 1:1; Rom. 15:18 f.), and of the strength of his moral life and conduct (I Cor. 
1:9; Rom. 12:5; Col. 3:11). 

80 It might be objected with a show of reason that some of the benefits discussed 
above were thought to have been derived directly from Christ; the Spirit had nothing 
to do with them. But when we take into account the ideas which were current at 
the time regarding doubles, and the loose way in which the writers of the New Testa- 
ment often speak of Christ and the Spirit, seemingly at times making no distinctions 
between them, in fact, practically identifying them (II Cor. 3:17, 18; John 14:18; 
16:16; I Cor. 15:45; Ign. Mag. 15; Herm. Sim. 9, 1) and often ascribing the same func- 
tions to both (I Cor. 6:11; Rom. 8:10, 11), we are justified in holding that as a rule 
the activities ascribed to Christ may without any misrepresentation of the writer's 
thought be attributed to his Spirit as well. We might even go a step further and say 
that perhaps these activities should be regarded as due to the agency of the Spirit. 

81 It is doubtful whether the Spirit is ever conceived of by the New Testament 
writers in a purely abstract way. The people of that age with the exception perhaps 
of some philosophers always thought of spirit as being composed of a very fine grade 
of matter , stuff or Uuidum, something resembling the constituency of fire, air or wind . 



A STUDY OF THE SPJRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 115 

their lives; there was an insert of divine substance or of a divine per- 
sonalized spirit into their beings. 82 This substance or spirit came 
from the heavenly body of Christ and became a supplement to the 
natural powers of the believer, aiding him to attain salvation. The 

This was dearly the belief of the Stoics, who claimed that the soul differed from the 
deity not in essence, but merely in the degree of the fineness of the matter from which 
they were composed (Cic, Tusc. Disp., I, 43, 18; Apul., De Deo Socr., 11, 144; Plut., 
Why the Orac. Cease, 13). Philo believed that spirit was like air flowing upon the 
earth (De Gigan., 5). For the Jewish view of spirit as fliddum see Volz, Der Geist 
Gottes, passim. That the New Testament writers thought of the Spirit as consisting 
of fine matter is seen in the terms: "dividing of tongues" (Acts 2:3), baptism "with 
fire" (Matthew 3:11), "breathing on of the Spirit" (John 20:22), "pouring forth of 
the Spirit" (Acts 2:33), "to be filled with the Spirit" (Acts 4:8), etc., which they em- 
ployed in speaking of the impartation of the Spirit. It is also seen in the custom of 
the laying on of hands (Acts 8:17-19; 9:17), in the conception underlying the trans- 
figuration of Christ (Luke 9:27; cf. 13:23; 21:27; 22:16, 18, 30; Matthew 13:43; 20:21), 
and in the belief in the objective reality of apparitions and vision-appearances. Paul's 
idea of the future glorious body is no doubt that of a body composed of a very fine 
grade of matter (I Cor. 15:44). A passage bearing on this early Christian idea of 
spirit is found in Theophilus, Ad Autol., II, 13, where he says: "The Spirit is fine, 
and the water is fine, so that the Spirit may nourish the water and the water, pene- 
trating everywhere along with thy Spirit, may nourish creation." See also on this 
subject Gunkel, Die Wirkungen u.s.w., pp. 43-9. 

The Spirit however was also thought of in terms of personality, as is clear from the 
attribution to the Spirit of such functions as teaching, guiding, interceding, groaning, 
witnessing, convincing, judging, etc. (See also Matthew 4:1). This personal idea of 
the Spirit is especially prominent in the Pauline and Johannine books, but even here 
a materialistic conception of the Spirit may not altogether be absent. The thought 
of a personal spirit as being constituted of a fine substance was not foreign to the 
thought of their day. Even the passage in Luke 24:39 may indicate no more than 
that the risen body of Jesus was regarded as composed of a finer substance than that 
of an ordinary human body of flesh and bones. In this connection one should be 
careful not to confuse the Spirit with angels, for the Spirit is never identified with an 
angel in the New Testament. There is in the New Testament no one angel of God; 
there are man}'- angels who act as his, or the Messiah's ministering servants and even 
perform some of the functions of the Spirit. But the Spirit and angels a<:e regarded 
as different beings. 

&2 It is easy enough, granting the penetrability of one material substance by 
another, which was the view held by the people of New Testament times, to under- 
stand what was meant by them when they said that they were possessed by the Spirit, 
or that the Spirit was in them. But the term, to be in the Spirit, seems to have a 
different connotation. A probable explanation of the meaning of this phrase is that 
the spiritual substance or personal spirit is thought of as being of too great a quan- 
tity or size to admit of its entering completely into the body of a human being; hence 
the thought is that part of it at least simply remains outside and around the body, 
and the body is, as it were, clothed, immersed, or submerged in the divine substance. 



116 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Christians were dualists in their world-view, and differed especially 
from the Stoics in their conception as to the need of a divine insert 
from without in addition to a man's natural faculties of mind for the 
attainment of salvation. The Stoics believed that a man could obtain 
salvation by the cultivating and perfecting of the innate powers of his 
soul, which were essentially divine. 83 But the thing that secured sal- 
vation according to the Christian view was the presence of this divine 
element in their souls, namely, the Spirit of Christ. And it is for this 
reason that Christianity is to be classed with the religions of redemption. 

3. And finally, the endowment of the Spirit had a value for the 
cult as well as for the individual believer. One might say that the success 
of Christianity in the first century depended very largely upon its 
pneumatic activities and advantages. There was such an enthusiasm 
and joy, such a confidence in their power over sin and death, such an 
assurance of salvation among the Christians, that no rival religion 
could compete with them. They could meet the competition of the Jew 
by claiming that it was the endowment of the Spirit, which came as 
a result of faith, not the keeping of the law, that constituted and brought 
salvation. And as for the Gentile, the emotional experiences which 
they interpreted as the work of the Spirit, the mystic union of the 
believer with Christ through the possession of his Spirit, and the pro- 
mise of eternal fife, all of which the Christians claimed they obtained 
as a result of their faith in the heavenly Christ, could satisfy his re- 
ligious need as well as the practices and teachings of any of the other 
religions and cults of the day. In fact, Christianity could outdo its 
competitors because it united in itself so many elements of strength, — 
the chief one of which was doubtless the endowment of the Spirit, — 
and because it could appeal to a real historical personage who had 
exemplified in his career the life of the Spirit. Whereas many of the 
cults of the day could resort merely to abstract notions and principles, 
the Christians appealed to a concrete historical personality as the one 
who had through his possession of the Spirit brought salvation to the 
world and had by virtue of his greatness and power and exemplary life 
been exalted to a place next the Supreme Deity himself. It is with the 
conception of the Christians regarding the Spirit-endowment of this 
individual that we have next to do. 

83 See Case, Evol. of Ear. Xty, pp. 343 f . 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 117 



CHAPTER VI 

Jesus as Pneumatikos 

For the first group of Jesus' followers, who early had come to iden- 
tify him with the Apocalyptic Messiah, the earthly career of Jesus did 
not seem to possess any supreme significance. They were interested 
chiefly in the heavenly Christ from whom they believed that they were 
receiving their present spiritual endowment and through whom they 
hoped to receive their future salvation. Of course, they always con- 
ceived of Jesus and the heavenly Christ as the same person; yet the 
unique importance which the latter had, as they thought, in their attain- 
ment of salvation, and the centering of their hopes upon the future, the 
near future indeed, as the time for the estabb'shment of the Messianic 
kingdom and for their deliverance from sin and Satan, almost com- 
pletely overshadowed their interest in the earthly life of Jesus. The 
almost negligible use which Paul made of the traditions concerning 
the words and deeds of Jesus indicates that in his time, at least in the 
circles which he served, the emphasis was not upon Jesus' earthly activ- 
ity. With him the death, resurrection and exhaltation of Jesus alone were 
of chief importance. 

However, various forces and influences were brought to bear upon 
the Christians that made them pay greater attention to Jesus' earthly 
life. 1 The Jewish interest in preserving the words of a great teacher, 
the deep impress which the fife and personality of Jesus had made upon 
his immediate followers, the need of the Christian organization for an 
authoritative body of teachings of its own, the miracle-loving disposi- 
tion of the people of that age, all tended to stimulate a greater interest 
in the teachings and deeds of Jesus. But there was one influence in 
particular which because of its relevance to our subject should be men- 
tioned here, and that was the need which the Christians felt of recon- 
ciling the picture which they had drawn of the heavenly Christ with the 
actual life of simplicity and humble service which Jesus had led while 
upon earth. They were brought face to face with the task of showing that 
already in his earthly career Jesus had given evidence of his Messianic 
power and divine personality, and that his work and character while he 
lived among men was in accord with their conception of the exalted 

1 Cf. Case, Evol. of Ear. Xty, pp. 355 ff. 



118 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Christ. And they had further to demonstrate the fact that the earthly 
life of Jesus was of such a nature as to make him worthy of the office 
either of the Messiah or of the Savior. To accomplish this feat they 
of necessity had to read back into Jesus' earthly life the notions which 
they had of the heavenly Lord Jesus. Hence it may be said that current 
ideas regarding the Apocalyptic Messiah of the Jews and the savior- 
gods of the Gentiles had much to do with their new portrait of the 
earthly life and character of Jesus. 

We might with propriety call this process in the evolution of early 
Christian thought the myth-stage, for it must have taken place after 
the first spontaneous ebullition of joy and enthusiasm had somewhat 
cooled down and the Christians had begun to reflect upon the meaning 
of Jesus' life, and hence to form the myth of the cult. Paul's seeming 
lack of interest in Jesus' earthly career may have been due, at least 
in part, to the fact that he was still living in the time when the Chris- 
tian life was the life of the Spirit; the period of reflection had not yet 
fully come. 2 

Two considerations should further be made with regard to the rea- 
son why the early Christians interpreted the earthly life of Jesus in 
just the way they did. (1) In the first place their Spirit-endowment 
entered in as a determining factor in their idea of the earthly Jesus. 
Since they believed that the Spirit which was active in them had come 
from the heavenly Christ, and identified this heavenly Christ with 
Jesus, they of course thought that the Spirit that worked in Jesus was 
the same that was working in them. Hence they concluded that the 
spiritual gifts and activities of Jesus while upon earth corresponded with 
those that prevailed in the churches of their day. If in any church or 
Christian community the spiritual gift of exorcism, for example, was 
prevalent, it was natural for the members of that group to regard this 
as one of the gifts that Jesus also had possessed. If the members were 
given to prophecy, they would think of this as one of the activities 
of Jesus, since he was possessed of the same Spirit as they. 3 What 
the Spirit of Christ did in them they thought it did also in Jesus. 

(2) Their thought of Jesus' earthly life was also conditioned by 
their idea of salvation. Of course, they did not believe that Jesus 

2 Notice that it is chiefly in the later letters of Paul that he refers to Jesus' earthly 
life and sojourn (Phil. 2:5 ff.; Col. l:14ff.), but even here the emphasis is upon the 
exalted Christ and his cosmic functions. 

3 This does not mean that the Christians necessarily manufactured stories re- 
garding the life of Jesus to correspond with what they judged from their pneumatic 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 119 

needed salvation; that never once entered their minds. But their con- 
ception of salvation did have an effect upon the emphasis which they 
placed on the Messianic and redemptive significance of the earthly Jesus. 
When at the beginning of the movement salvation was considered chiefly 
as a matter of the future, the emphasis fell upon the Apocalyptic idea 
of the heavenly Christ who would come as the future Messiah and 
deliverer. But later when the Messiah delayed his coming and the idea 
of a present salvation came to prevail, of course the stress was then 
placed upon the earthly life and work of Jesus. The Christians were 
not willing to be cheated out of salvation. So they advanced the claim 
that Jesus had performed and completed his Messianic work while still 
on earth. The revelation which he had brought was sufficient to save 
now, especially in view of the fact that he had left his Spirit behind to 
aid the believer in the attainment of this salvation. We will notice 
as we proceed with our investigation that this was the problem that 
particularly concerned the author of the fourth Gospel. 

In this chapter we have to do with the Spirit-endowment of Jesus 
while he was on earth. And we are concerned here primarily with the 
interpretations which the authors of the New Testament books placed 
upon his personality, not with the conception of Jesus himself nor that 
of his contemporaries regarding his relation to the Spirit. For the 
latter, in view of the fact that the writers of the Gospels assign state- 
ments to Jesus and to the people around him which doubtless arose 
as a result of the development of the Christian tradition and myth, 
presents a problem so intricate and involved as to prevent a full dis- 
cussion here. Suffice it to say, however, that there can be little reason 
for doubting that Jesus was fully convinced of his own possession of 
the Spirit. If the story of his first preaching at Nazareth 4 is at all 
true to the facts, Jesus must at least have classed himself with the 
prophets and must have felt the call by the Spirit of God to preach and 
to heal as the seers of the Old Testament also had done. When he 
is accused by the people for casting out demons by the power of Satan, 
he resents the charge, and claims that he was inspired by a beneficent 

experiences he must have done. That, of course, may have occurred. But it does 
mean that the pneumatic experiences of the Christians had much to do with regard 
to the kind of traditional material which they decided to choose and preserve, as well 
as with the interpretation which they put upon it. 

4 Luke 4:16-30. Since Luke here uses a source that is doubtless early and gives 
a representation of Jesus that accords with the Jewish conception of a prophet, we 
have no reason for supposing that the account is not true to the actual situation. 



120 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

spirit. 5 This too may indicate that he ascribed the power by which 
he healed the sick and cast out demons to the presence of the Spirit 
of God in him. 

The estimate which Jesus' contemporaries placed upon his person 
and work can scarcely be discovered from the Gospel narratives. His 
relatives are represented as thinking that he was mad. 6 Herod is said 
to have thought that he was the ghost or transmigrated soul of John the 
Baptist; others thought that he was Elijah returned to earth, while still 
others regarded him simply as a prophet. 7 But here again we are unable 
to tell whether these ideas were really held by these contempora- 
ries of Jesus or whether they were only the sentiments of Mark, ascribed 
to the people either by him or by his source. Nevertheless one can 
safely say that the impression of the personality of Jesus upon the 
people about him must have been so striking that they would surely 
have attributed the possession of the Spirit to him. In order to account 
for the rise of the Christian movement and for its connection with the 
name of Jesus, one can not avoid the necessity of postulating a deep 
and abiding impression made by Jesus upon his followers. To make such 
an impression required a forceful personality. And in those days the 
possession of extraordinary powers and qualities was always ascribed 
to spiritual or demonic agency. It may be taken for granted therefore 
that both Jesus and his followers agreed in maintaining his possession 
of the Spirit of God. 

When we turn to the question as to what the early Christians > 
and particularly the authors of our New Testament books, thought of 
the spiritual power in Jesus' life, we feel surer of the results of our inves- 
tigation, for this is a matter which at least some of the writers were 
especially anxious to emphasize. 

Beginning with Paul, we find that, as we have already intimated, 
he was not concerned so much with the manifestation of the power of 
the Spirit in the earthly career of Jesus as with the Messianic and re- 
demptive functions of the heavenly Christ. The earthly Jesus, ac- 
cording to Paul's way of thinking, was simply the incarnation of a 
divine cosmic being. He was the manifestation in human form of an 

5 Mark 3 :23-30. The statement that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is un- 
pardonable may however be the reflection of a later age and may represent the idea of 
Mark rather than that of Jesus. 

6 Mark 3:21. The use of the word, e^earr], in this connection would point to 
the idea of Spirit-possession. 

7 Mark 6:14, 15. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 121 

eternal Christ-spirit, who before his appearance upon earth lived in 
heaven, perhaps next to God in rank. 8 This being was God's eUoov 
and was the first to be born of all created things. That is, he was the 
Son of God. 9 God then made use of him as his agent in the creation of 
the world; and Paul asserts that not only all visible things were created 
through him, but all the invisible powers of the heaven and earth as 
well. 10 Of all the beings in heaven, on the earth, and in the underworld 
he is pre-eminent, and he functions as the sustainer of the universe. 11 
He not only stands closest to God in relative position but is nearest 
to him in substance or form. 

Although Paul nowhere calls this being the Logos, he might just as 
well have used this term, for the functions of his cosmic being and those 
of the Logos, as they were conceived of by the people of his day, were 
to a large extent quite similar. However he prefers to use the terms, 
image of God's substance, and Son of God. The reason for this prefer- 
ence was doubtless because his Jewish conceptions still played a large 
part in his thinking. Logos was a Greek and Gentile notion; Son of 
God was a term understood by both Jews and Greeks. 12 And perhaps 
Paul's belief that Spirit-endowment meant power rather than knowledge 
made him reticent in the use of the word, Logos, which had such a close 
relation with gnosis. Furthermore, the fact that authority rather than 
divine nature was uppermost in Paul's thought of Christ would also have 
an influence in determining his preference for the title, Son of God. 

The earthly Jesus he then conceives of as the Son of God, because 
a divine entity had come down from heaven and had become incarnate 
in him. The body of the one chosen to be the embodiment of this 
heavenly being was that of a descendant of the royal Davidic line and a 

8 Phil. 2 :5 ff . The demons were regarded in Greek thought as desiring to become 
gods. But Paul represents the pre-existent Christ-spirit as giving up his ambitious 
desire for deification and coming down to the earth in obedience to his spirit of humility 
and service. The attainment of a position or rank on an equality with the Supreme 
Deity was in his grasp, but he preferred to serve rather than to be deified. 

9 It should be remembered that, although Paul speaks of Christ as the second 
or ideal man (I Cor. 15:45-47; Rom. 5:14), yet he never refers to him as the Son of 
Man. The reason for this is that he, while recognizing the Davidic descent of Jesus 
(Rom. 1:3; 9:5), nevertheless holds to the idea that the Messiah was a pre-existent 
heavenly being. The physical descent of the Messiah was a matter of small moment. 
He was the Apocalyptic, not the Davidic or national Messiah. 

10 Col. 1:1-16. 

11 Col. 1:17. 

12 See Pneiderer, Ear. Xtian. Concep. of Xst, ch. 1, who shows what ideas pre- 
vailed among both Jews and Greeks in New Testament times regarding divine Sonship. 



122 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

member of the chosen race of Israel. 13 His life upon earth was of signifi- 
cance, in the first place, because it furnished an example of obedience, 
humility and love; 14 in the second place and chiefly because his death, 
resurrection and exaltation put him in the class of dying and rising gods 
and made it possible for the believer to effect a union with the deity. 
His earthly life of obedience and the holy type of character which he 
manifested here was the proof that he was worthy to be exalted to divine 
Sonship. 15 The descent of this heavenly being to earth was undertaken 
primarily that by his death, resurrection and exaltation he might recon- 
cile the world to God. 16 Paul's interest then in the earthly Jesus was 
subsidiary to his interest in the heavenly Christ. And this was due 
no doubt to his idea of salvation, which he regarded partly, if not chiefly, 
as a matter of the future, and to his notion of the Spirit which he thought 
came from the heavenly Christ. 

When we inquire as to the reason why Paul applied such an inter- 
pretation to the person and work of the earthly Jesus, we will doubt- 
less find the proper solution in Paul's interpretation of his own pneu- 
matic experiences. He believed that a divine being or spirit had come 
down from heaven and had taken possession of his body. This divine 
entity in him was the cause for certain ecstatic conditions which he 
himself was experiencing, such as the seeing of visions, the speaking 
with tongues, etc. ; but it was also responsible for a much more important 
fact in his life, namely, the power of his moral life and conduct. The 
fruit of this possession was love and gentleness and faithfulness to duty 
and endurance in hardship. It was a permanent endowment and united 
him in an unbroken bond with his heavenly Lord, a union that would 
finally issue in his being taken up to heaven to live forever in joyful com- 
munion with him. Now this is the experience which Paul also supposed 
Jesus to have had while upon earth. He imagines him to have become 
possessed by a divine being from heaven, the Christ-spirit, or the image 
of God. This incarnation issued in a life of love, obedience, self-sacri- 
fice and wisdom. This Spirit-endowment was, of course, a permanent 
matter, the heavenly being residing continually in the body of Jesus. 
After his death he was exalted to heaven and was now living there in 
close fellowship with God. That Paul was influenced in these ideas by 
the thought-world of his day goes without saying. We can see the re- 

13 Rom. 1:3; 9:5. 

14 Phil. 2:5 ff.; II Cor. 8:9. 

15 Phil. 2:8. 9; Rom. 1:4. 

16 Col. 1:20. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 123 

semblances between his picture of Jesus and the notions which the Jews 
had of the Apocalyptic Messiah and of Wisdom, and which the Greeks 
had of the Son of God and of the Logos. But the influence of these ideas 
upon his interpretation of the historical Jesus was doubtless indirect. 
They bore a direct influence first of all upon the interpretation which 
he put on his pneumatic experiences, as we endeavored to show in 
chapter three. 17 Their influence upon his thought of Jesus was only 
indirectly felt through the application of his conception of his Spirit- 
endowment to the interpretation of Jesus' personality. 18 

The non-Marcan sections found in Matthew and Luke portray Jesus 
as the great Teacher, as a prophet par excellence. He is of course the 
Messiah, for he is called the Son of Man, 19 and his works of power are 
indeed referred to. 20 But the emphasis is plainly put upon the prophetic 
function of the Messiah. He is called to preach glad tidings to the poor, 
to proclaim release to the captives, and to announce the coming of the 
day of the Lord. His teaching arouses the wonder and astonishment of 
the people. 21 And even the mighty deeds mentioned in these sections 
are all such as a prophet might be expected to perform. The endowment 
then which Jesus is thought to have had was the spirit of prophecy or 
teaching. To the authors of these sections the uniqueness of Jesus' 
personality lay in his power to teach, and this remarkable gift was ac- 
counted for by ascribing to Jesus the possession of the Spirit, the very 
Spirit which the Messiah was supposed to receive. 22 

This emphasis upon the teaching of Jesus was doubtless occasioned 
by the admiration which his followers felt for his words and utterances; 
but the need which the early Christians must soon have felt for an authori- 
tative body of teachings may have acted also as a spur to the collec- 
tion of the sayings of Jesus. Likewise the presence of prophets and 

17 Ch. 3, pp. 72 ff. 

18 This method of explaining how Paul came to interpret Jesus' person in the way- 
he did, does not mean that Paul regarded himself on an equality with Jesus as a pneu- 
matic person. Christ was over all, and though Paul expected to be with him in heaven 
and to reign with him, he nevertheless never hoped to be exalted to the position of 
power and dignity to which Jesus had attained. 

19 See for example Matthew 10:23; 11:19; 13:37; and Luke 6:22, 34; 11:30; 17:22 ff.; 
19:10. 

20 Matthew 11:2-6; Luke 4:18. Notice also the miracles that are recorded in 
the sections peculiar to Matthew and Luke, which deal with Jesus' early Galilean 
and Perean activities. -^\ " SK 

21 Matthew 7:28, 29. y^ 

22 Is. 29:18, 19; 35:5/6; 61 :l/cf. Matthew 11:2 ff.; Luke 4:16 ff. 



124 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

teachers in the early Christian communities, and the influence and 
respect which noted teachers won in those days, must have been factors 
too in the bringing of the teaching function of Jesus to the forefront, at 
least in certain circles. 

It is quite possible that Jesus as a prophet regarded himself as pos- 
sessed by the Spirit of the Lord, and if so, the picture of him in these 
non-Marcan sections must in the main be genuine. But one can easily 
see how, since the early Christian prophets and teachers believed in 
their own inspiration, they should ascribe the same power and endow- 
ment to the earthly Jesus. Since the Spirit of the heavenly Christ 
which was in them caused them to preach and to teach, the natural 
presupposition was that this same Spirit was also active in the earthly 
Jesus, for he had the same kind of divine substance in him as they now 
possessed. 

In Mark we find quite a different conception of the Spirit's ac- 
tivity in Jesus. He is here not so much a teacher as he is a wonder- 
worker. As the Messiah he plays the role of the conqueror of Satan 
and his demons rather than that of the prophet. In both Matthew and 
Mark Jesus is said to have taught with authority. 23 But with the 
former the authority lay in the power of his words, while with the latter 
the authority consisted in the power to cast out demons. 24 The first 
thing then which the Spirit in Jesus meant to the author of Mark was to 
give him the power over Satan and the demons. 25 Jesus' Spirit-life is 
viewed as beginning with his baptism, when the Spirit is thought to 
have descended upon him in the form of a dove. And this forms also 
the beginning of Jesus' Messianic office, for he is at this time proclaimed 
the Son of God. 26 Immediately the power of the Spirit was manifested 
in his life in that he was able to withstand the temptations of Satan in 
the wilderness. While he was there the angels ministered to him, a sign 
that he was greater than Elijah who was cared for only by the birds of 
the air. Jesus then began preaching in Galilee, but the thing that im- 
pressed the people was not his words, but the power which he had over 
evil spirits. 

23 Matthew 7:28, 29; Mark 1:22. 

24 Cf. Mark 1:22 with the verses that follow, especially vs. 27. 

25 The conception of the deity as Lord of spirits was widely current in ancient 
times. See Tylor, Prim. Cult., pp. 308 ff. In the volume of Oxyrrhyncus Papyri 
recently published by Grenfell and Hunt is a reference (Pap. No. 1380) in which Isis 
is called the ruler of spirits. 

26 Mark 1 :9 ff . 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 125 

Jesus is also pictured by Mark as a wonder-worker. The exorcism 
of demons was of course a part of his miracle-working, but besides this 
exhibition of his power, he healed the sick, raised the dead, fed the mul- 
titude, walked on the water, foretold his death and resurrection as 
well as his coming again on the clouds, caused a fig tree to wither, etc. 
He does nothing that can justify his enemies in putting him to death. 
His remarkable personality manifests itself in the transfiguration of 
his body, and his power over death is seen in his resurrection from the 
dead. His miraculous activity is interpreted in various ways by the 
people around him. His relatives think him to be mad; Herod regards 
him as John raised from the dead; some think that he is Elijah, or one 
of the other prophets, returned to earth; his enemies ascr be 1 is super- 
natural power to the agency of Satan. But the demon-possessed, who 
because of the presence of demons in them were supposed to have super- 
natural knowledge, recognized what the others were unable, to see, 
namely, that Jesus was the Messiah. 27 This is also the conclusion to 
which those most closely associated with him came as to his remarkable 
deeds and person. 28 

Now there are several things to notice with regard to this Marcan 
picture of the Spirit working in Jesus: (1) the author is evidently in- 
fluenced in his thought of Jesus by the conceptions which he and his 
contemporaries had with regard to pneumatic conditions. Just as a 
Christian got possession of the Spirit at baptism, so Jesus is viewed as 
receiving his spiritual endowment on this occasion. Again, the circle of 
Christians to whom Mark belonged, doubtless possessed the power of 
exorcising demons, healing the sick, and foretelling events; in fact, must 
have been exercising most of those gifts which were considered operations 
of the Spirit according to the popular conceptions. 29 So our author 
naturally inferred that these same Spirit-activities played a part in 
the life of Jesus. 

(2) His thought of Jesus is also affected by his idea of salvation. 
He evidently believed that salvation consisted in getting rid of Satan 
and the demons. And this conquering of evil spirits he does not re- 
serve entirely for the future work of the Messiah ; it is a matter which he 
regards as a part of a man's present salvation. Hence he pictures Jesus 
as already exercising his Messianic authority over the demons during 
his earthly career, and as being conscious even before his death of his 

27 Mark 3:11; 5:7. 

28 Mark 8:29. 

29 Mark 6:7, 13; 9:38 ff. 



126 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Messianic office. 30 Since Jesus exhibited this power while upon earth 
a man was not under the necessity of waiting until the future coming o 
the Messiah before he could obtain deliverance. This was no d ubt one 
of the causes for Mark reading back into the life of Jesus ideas which 
prevailed in his day. And his motive must have been a practical one, 
namely, to minister to the religious needs of his time. When we remem- 
ber how the common people of that day were bound by superstitious 
fear and dread of the demons whom they supposed to be constantly sur- 
rounding them to do them injury, we may realize how the gospel of a 
demon-conquering Savior must have come to them as a boon of price- 
less value. 

(3) Mark's conception of Jesus is also influenced by current notions 
of the Messiah. Although the people proclaimed him to be the Messiah 
of Davidic descent, 31 Mark is clear in stating that Jesus is the Son of 
Man who should come on the clouds of heaven, 32 and even has Jesus 
refuse to be called other than the Lord of David. 33 The picture which 
Mark gives then of Jesus' earthly life accords with the Apocalyptic, not 
with the national view of the Messiah. 

(4) And Mark shows also in his Gospel the tendency, which has 
characterized every age of the world's history, namely, the tendency to 
idealize the hero. There never was a hero who did not have his wor- 
shipper, and there never was a worshipper who did not have his tale. 
Jesus was Mark's hero. And whether the myths that grew up around 
the life history of Jesus were found in Mark's sources or were a product 
of his own pen, is not a matter of consequence. They are present in 
his work, and the only explanation which he could give as a man of his 
day for such a remarkable array of deeds and such an extraordinary 
personality as Jesus is said to have possessed, was to ascribe to him 
Messianic functions and power while he lived upon the earth; and, of 
course, this involved a belief in the Spirit-endowment of the man who 
could display such power as to make him worthy to be regarded as the 
Messiah and could assume such a dignified office. 34 

The infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke havea yet more height- 
ened conception than Mark of the personality of Jesus. His divine 

30 Mark 2:10; 9:9-13 et al. 

31 Mark 11:10. 

32 Mark 13:26; 14:62 et al. 

33 Mark 12:35-37. 

34 See Pfleiderer, Ear. Xtian Concep. of Xst, chs. 2 & 3, for parallels in other 
religious and philosophic systems to Mark's representation of Jesus. 



A STUDY OP THE SPIRiT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 127 

Sonship is here viewed as being due to a divine birth. In Mark the 
conception of Jesus is that of the apotheosis of a man; the Spirit of 
God takes possession of him at maturity. According to the infancy 
narratives he is born the Son of God, the Holy Spirit being his Father, 
and the virgin Mary his mother. He is, as it were, a God-man. The 
divine element then was in his character from the very beginning of his 
human life. 35 The presence of this divine element in him was attested 
by the leaping of the unborn child of Elizabeth, by the homage paid to 
him as a child by shepherds and wise men, by the ministry of angelic 
beings who kept him from suffering harm, by the fact that his coming 
was recognized as the fulfillment of the Messianic hopes of the people, 
by the testimony of the prophets, Simeon and Anna, by his precocity, and 
by his consciousness of a divine call. 

Whether these stories are connected with any definite pre-Christian 
legends is hard to prove; that they have very little historical fact as a 
basis may be taken for granted. They clearly belong to the type of 
myth-literature. The particular form in which the stories are related, 
and perhaps even their contents, may quite possibly have been de- 
rived from Buddhist, Persian, and Greek myths. But the idea of divine 
Sonship, which they depict, has its ultimate source in the conception 
which was quite universal in ancient times and has not yet disappeared, 
namely, that the extraordinary gifts and deeds of particular men must 
have a divine cause and must be due to a divine element in the human. 
The ascription of divine Sonship to the child Jesus then has its roots 
in the notions that were current in the time when Matthew and Luke 
were written or that at least made their influence felt when the Christian 
myth was being formed. 36 

It might be said however that the rivalry that doubtless existed 
between the John the Baptist cult and the Christians must have been 

35 It should be remarked that this conception of Jesus was the reason why Matthew 
represents John the Baptist as refusing to baptize Jesus. Since Jesus was the Son 
of God from birth, he had no need to be baptized (Matthew 3:13-17). But Matthew 
fails to reconcile completely his idea with Mark's account of the Spirit's descent at 
Jesus' baptism, and inserts the latter in spite of the fact that it is not in accord with 
the picture of Jesus in the infancy accounts. And yet it might be possible that Mat- 
thew thought that Jesus, even though he was the Son of God before his baptism, had 
need at certain times of a special endowment of the Spirit. 

36 On Buddhist legends regarding the childhood of Buddha, see Lalita Vistara, 
I, 78-88, 91-94, 115, 118-122. On Greek ideas of Virgin Birth see Jamblichus, De 
Vit. Pythag., ch. 2; Gellius, Noct. Att., 6, 1; Suet., Aug., 94; Origen, Cont. Cels., 
I, 37; Hippol., Philos., IX, 10; Epiph., Haer., XXX, 53; Diodorus, Hist., I, 2; 



128 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHEXOMEXA IX THE NEW TESTAMENT 

one of the motives for the writing of these infancy stories and for the 
heightening of the personality of Jesus hich they manifest. The Chris- 
tians did not deny that John was spiritually endowed from birth, but 
they claimed that his birth did not possess the uniqueness of Jesus' birth. 
He had an ordinary man as his father and he did not have a virgin as 
his mother. The divine birth of Jesus implied that he had more of the 
divine element in him than John had, and sustained a closer relation to 
God. John was simply a Spirit-endowed prophet; Jesus was the Son 
of God. 

The author of Acts says very little about the relation of Jesus to 
the Spirit during his earthly life. Nothing is said of his pre-existence, 
nor of his supernatural birth. The author is interested almost entirely 
in the exalted heavenly Christ, and the repeated references to Jesus' 
death and resurrection are made chiefly because they were the necessary 
preliminaries to his exaltation. We do have, however, a few passages 
that refer to Jesus' earthly career, and these agree in general with the 
representation which we find in the non-Marcan sources of Matthew 
and Luke. In these Jesus is a man ''approved of God unto you by 
mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst 
of you." 37 He is the prophet which Moses foretold the Lord would 
raise up from among the people, like unto him, to whose message all 
were to hearken. 38 Perhaps the most significant passage is: "Even 
Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with 
power: who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed 
of the devil; for God was with him. '' 39 Even after his resurrection Jesus 
is pictured as assuming the role of a prophet in forecasting the coming of 
the Spirit and in assigning to the apostles their work in the future. 40 

It is evident that the author thinks of Jesus chiefly as the future 
Messiah. His earthly life was one of beneficent deeds, helpful service 
and prophetic activity. He was above all the servant of God, 41 a con- 

IV. 8-39. And on the subject in general consult Petersen, Die wunderbare Geburt 
des Heilandes; Soltau. Die Geburtsgeschichte Jesu Christi; Pfleiderer. Ear. Xtian 
Concep. of Xst, ch. 1, pp. 29 ff.; Cheyne, Bible Problems, pp. 71 ff.; and Harthnd, 
Legend of Perseus. See also Case. Evol. of Ear. Xty. ch. 7, for a discussion of the 
divine son ship of kings. 

37 Acts 2:22. 

38 Acts 3:22. 

39 Acts 10:38. 

40 Acts 1 :2. 4, 8. 

i: Acts 3:13. 26:4:30. 



A STUDY OF THE SPI5IT-PHEN0MENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 129 

ception that resembles Paul's idea of the character of Jesus' career. 42 
This earthly life, of course, was of such a nature as to win the approval 
of God, and became the reason for his exaltation to Messianic dignity 
and power. 43 So while he was on earth he performed the Messianic 
functions of a prophet: the deliverance of a divine message and the 
working of mighty deeds and wonders. He therefore in his earthly life 
was possessed of the spirit of prophecy, and this is taken to account 
for his remarkable message and deeds. 

We might here also point out the relation which evidently existed 
between the author's ideas of Spirit-possession and salvation and his 
notion of the Spirit-endowment of the earthly Jesus. He had the popu- 
lar notions regarding the operations of the Spirit; hence the Spirit- 
possession of Jesus was also of this type, that is, the sporadic endowment 
with power to prophesy and to perform miracles. Likewise his idea of 
salvation as being chiefly the enjoyment of the privileges and blessings 
of the future Messianic age, influenced him in placing the emphasis upon 
the heavenly and exalted Lord and Messiah, rather than upon the Mes- 
sianic significance of his earthly life. And the fact that he had already 
dealt with the earthly Jesus in his Gospel might account for his seeming 
lack of interest in his earthly life in Acts. 

The epistle to the Hebrews like Paul divides the career of Christ 
into three periods or stages of existence: his pre-existent life, his earthly 
sojourn, and his present exalted state. In his pre-existent life he was 
the Son of God and the agent of creation, to whom the Father entrusted 
all things, for he made him his heir. His being was constituted of divine 
substance and was the image of God. The light of God's glory shone 
forth from him. And he was the sustainer of the universe. 44 His com- 
ing to earth was evidently for two reasons: (1) to reveal the Father, 
for it was through him that God spoke, and (2) to make purification 
for the sins of men, which he accomplished by offering up his life to 
God as a sacrifice. During his earthly life he inhabited the human body 
of Jesus, but this assumption of human form involved limitations and a 
humiliation on his part, for he thereby was made lower than the angels. 45 
However this affected only his rank, not his person or character, for 
he remained unspotted from sin. 46 

42 Phil. 2:7. 

43 Acts 2:33-36; 5:31; 10:38 ff. 
"Heb. 1:1-3. 

«Heb. 2:9. 
«Heb.4:15. 



130 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

The two things in the life of Jesus in which the author was particu- 
larly interested were his death and his sinlessness, the former bearing 
significance in the fact that it was a sacrifice for the sins of men, the 
latter being of importance because it made the offering of his life a 
perfect one and ensured its eternal efficacy. His sinlessness was attained 
not merely by virtue of his being God's Son, but through earnest prayers 
and supplications to God and through suffering. 47 It was through 
obedience even unto death that he was made perfect, a conception 
very similar to Paul's. The death of Jesus is viewed as being due to 
the power of his divine Spirit; at least, it was through this Spirit that 
he offered up his fife as a sacrifice to God. 48 The author no doubt 
regarded his death as being so unique and significant that the operation 
of the Spirit to his mind must have played a part in it. 

The author's conceptions of Spirit-activities and of salvation had 
a noticeable effect upon his idea of Jesus' life and person. His interest 
was not in the popular conceptions of the Spirit, though he recognizes 
the popular gifts of the Spirit as a subsidiary witness to the salvation 
revealed through Jesus and the apostles. 49 He is primarily interested 
in the revelation which the divine Son brought from heaven and de- 
livered to men through the mediation of the Spirit. 50 Jesus revealed 
a knowledge of God through his sinless life and his sacrificial death. The 
work of the Spirit was revelation, the enlightenment of the believer; 
this is also the office and work of the divine being resident in Jesus. 
Again the author conceives of the patient endurance of suffering as one 
of the believer's duties and lot, the strength for which he was to derive 
from his union with the deity through enlightenment. So he thinks 
of Jesus as having been made perfect through suffering. 51 Further- 
more the author believes that the possession of the Spirit in the believer 
was a permanent matter. He applies this notion to Jesus' endowment 
and conceives of him as permanently inhabited by a divine being. 

The author thinks of salvation as an inner and abiding covenant- 
relation between God and man. The present life affords a mere fore- 
taste of the results of this relationship. A man can already gain access to 
the throne of God. And because the author thinks of the free and direct 
access to God as one of the present attainments of the believer, he 

47 Heb. 5:7-10. 

48 Heb. 9:14. 

49 Heb. 2:3,4. 

60 Heb. 9:8; 10:15. 
"Heb. 2:10 etaL 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 131 

regards Jesus as the one who in his earthly career first of all opened up the 
way into the Holy of Holies. But the future has a perfect Sabbath rest 
and an eternal inheritance in store for the enlightened. In accord 
with this future outlook the author places the emphasis upon the exalted 
Christ, who because of his sinlessness and death was made to sit at 
the right hand of God and now occupies a place above the angels and 
above the great worthies of the past. He has become the great Mes- 
sianic highpriest, the mediator of a new covenant. This great heavenly 
highpriest therefore occupies the more prominent place in his thinking 
than the earthly Jesus, just because he views the future life as being so 
much more perfect and significant than the present foretaste of the 
Spirit. 

With the author of Revelation the earthly Jesus comes very seldom 
into view. He knows of Jesus' Davidic descent, 52 and believes that 
from his birth he was called to be the Messiah. 53 He emphasizes the 
death of Jesus, for he is the Lamb that was slain; and the fact of his 
death or martyrdom formed the basis for his present exalted state, for 
he was thereby made worthy to receive power, wisdom and glory. 54 
But after all in our author's thinking the figure of the heavenly Messiah 
is central. The heavenly Christ is a divine spiritual being who is put 
in command of all the heavenly forces and makes use of the angels 
and spirits in heaven to fight against Satan and his evil forces, both 
in heaven and on earth. 55 One of the functions of this divine being was 
also to reveal to such prophets as the author the divine plan of the 
future. 56 

The ideas of the book are clearly tinctured by the experiences of 
the author and by current religious conceptions. He was writing at 
a time when the present held very little hope of salvation for the be- 
liever. All he could expect in this life was persecution. Hence salva- 
tion was viewed as a matter of the future. This accounts for the author's 
preponderating interest in the future Messiah. So strong is this em- 
phasis upon the future that the author practically ignores the Messianic 

52 Rev. 5:5; 22:16. 

53 Rev. 12:5. The author here perhaps reveals an acquaintance with traditions 
similar to those in the infancy stories of Matthew and Luke. 

54 Rev. 5:9, 12. 

55 On the title, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, which the author of Revelation 
applies to Christ (17:14; 19:16) see Pneider r, Ear. Xtian Concep. of Xt, ch. 5, 
where this conception is treated from the standpoint of comparative religion. 

56 Rev. 1:1. 



132 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

significance of Jesus' earthly life. He has him caught up into heaven, 
it seems, immediately after birth in order that he might be shielded 
from his enemies until the time when he should have acquired power 
to overcome them. 67 The author clothes his idea of the Messiah in 
the current Apocalyptic figures and notions, but he does this mainly 
because of the suffering which he and his fellow- Christians were enduring 
at the hands of the Roman authorities. Apocalypticism was a form of 
thought quite often resorted to in order to encourage those who were 
suffering persecution or were facing a national crisis. That our author's 
idea of Jesus was conditioned by current Apocalyptic notions was to be 
expected under the circumstances. 

It might be remarked in passing that the author's consciousness 
of his own prophetic endowment led him to ascribe the same spiritual 
power and function to the heavenly Christ. 58 

The fourth Gospel presents a very interesting study of the spiritual 
element in the earthly Jesus. The author gives us practically the same 
three-fold picture of Jesus as we found in Paul and Hebrews, though a 
different terminology is used to describe the divine element in Jesus' 
personality. He uses the technical term of the philosophers and the 
Gnostics, the Logos, to denote the pre-existent Christ. His conception 
is that this heavenly being, the hypostatized Word of God, who was 
constituted of the same divine substance as God and was God's agent in 
creation and the giver of light and life to the whole universe, came 
down from heaven and became incarnate in Jesus. 59 When this incar- 
nation took place is not definitely stated, though it is to be presumed 
that the author conceived of it as occurring at the birth of Jesus. At 
least, the descent of the Spirit at his baptism was not for his own spir- 
itual endowment, which in view of the fact that he was the incarnate 
Logos, he would not need; it was to point him out to John the Baptist 
as the Savior of the world and the Son of God. 60 

The earthly career of Jesus is depicted in such a way as to com- 
port with the author's idea of his divine personality. His remarkable 
character and power are first of all manifest in his miracles, which are 
regarded not so much as works of love and helpfulness as they are signs 

"Rev. 12:5. 

58 Cf. Rev. 1:10; 4:2; 1:1. 

59 John 1:1-14. 

60 John 1:32-33. Notice that John in this connection says the Spirit "abode 
upon him." He does not say that the Spirit entered into him. 



A STUDY OF THE SFIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 133 

of Jesus' glory. 61 They are wrought not because Jesus' faith and love 
impelled him to do so, but because he wants them to lead men to believe 
in him. He has become the Christ of faith even in his earthly life. 

Again, his Logos-nature manifested itself in his supernatural know- 
ledge and in the majestic dignity of his person. He knew the secrets 
of men's hearts, and was aware of what was occurring at a distance. 62 
His personality was so awe-inspiring that the Greeks hesitated to approach 
him, and those who came to arrest him were so overcome by his presence 
as to fall to the ground. 63 His dignity of person was such as to create 
a sort of a spirit of aloofness and condescension in him. 64 No mention 
is made by John of his association with publicans and sinners. And 
his human compassion, which was so prominent in the Synoptic account, 
is largely supplanted by his desire to glorify himself or to win the faith 
of men in himself. This is especially evident in the story of the rais- 
ing of Lazarus. 65 Even his weeping on this occasion was not caused 
so much — at least we believe this to be the author's representation — 
by his regret for Lazarus' death, for how could he mourn in view of his 
belief that he could and would raise Lazarus from the dead, as by the 
evidence which the weeping of Mary and the Jews gave of their unbelief 
in him as the resurrection and the life. 66 

Again, in conformity with his heightened idea of the personality 
of Jesus the author represents him as being the complete master of any 
situation that confronts him. He is free from any human or external 
compulsion. He acts and lives according to a life-plan that has all been 
mapped out beforehand. He will not act, nor can anyone harm him, 
until his hour comes. 67 His death was purely a voluntary matter, for 
his enemies could not have put him to death had he not desired it. 68 

Jesus' divine character is finally and especially manifest in his mes- 
sage. His words attest his divine nature and proclaim him to be the 
revealer of God. 69 If men believe his message regarding his coming 

61 John 2:11; 9:3; 11:40. 

62 John 2:25; 4:18; 11:11. 

63 John 12:21; 18:6. 

64 John 13:3,4; 16:15. 

65 John 11:4,42. 

66 John 11:33. 

"John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20; 11:9. 

68 John 10:18; 19:11. 

69 John 5:24, 34, 47; 6:63, 68; 15:3. 



134 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

down from above to bring light and life to men, they will obtain salvation. 

It is in these various ways that the author gives evidence of the 
presence of the Logos in the human Jesus. 70 And the question naturally 
arises as to why John should have placed such emphasis upon the earth- 
ly life of Jesus and should have idealized it in such a way. The answer 
lies chiefly in his idea of salvation, which to him meant a present realiza- 
tion. The Messiah had delayed his coming and the Christians had 
begun, at least in some circles, to give up hope in his return to earth. 
As a result they began to believe that Jesus was really the Messiah 
while he was upon earth and that he had completed his Messianic work 
at that time. The revelation which he had made was final, at least so 
far as his connection with it was concerned. Hence they considered 
themselves as being not only by anticipation, but in present reality, 
members of the Messianic kingdom. Since their salvation depended 
upon the past work of Christ, they naturally emphasized the significance 
of his earthly career. And the Spirit, which under the Apocalyptic 
regime was to signal the incipiency of the Messianic age, was now re- 
garded as the mark of the completion of Jesus' Messianic work, sent as a 
substitute for his Parousia. 71 

The author's idea of gnosis as constituting salvation also had an 
influence in his conception of Jesus' spiritual activity and endowment. 
It was for this reason no doubt that he portrays Jesus as the revealer 
of the truth and places such stress upon his omniscience. And since 
the possession of this gnosis resulted in the permanent union of the 
believer with his Lord, the possession by Jesus of a divine being who 
resided in him permanently is likewise asserted. The man who pos- 
sessed this gnosis was assured of eternal life; hence Jesus is portrayed 
as the life-giver. And the result of the possession of divine knowl- 
edge is also viewed as an enlightenment; the believer became a son 
of light. Jesus is therefore conceived of as the bringer of light; in fact, 
he is the light itself. Thus we see how the author read into the life 
of Jesus the interpretations which he put upon the results of the Chris- 
tians' pneumatic experiences. 

It should be noticed here that the author was influenced by the 
religious thought of his day, especially in his conceptions of the incar- 
nate Logos, conceptions which had their roots both in Greek philosophy 
and in Oriental mysticism. It was quite a general belief in ancient 

70 For a fuller presentation of the above points see Scott, The Fourth Gospel, 
pp. 145 ff. 

71 John 14:18; 16:16. 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 135 

times that there were two worlds, a heavenly one in which the Supreme 
Deity reigned, and a material world which was the kingdom of Satan and 
the evil spirits. The soul of man was regarded as coming down from 
heaven, but was imprisoned in a material body during its sojourn upon 
earth. The only way that the soul could be released and find its way 
back to heaven was through the help of a god who would descend from 
heaven for this purpose. When the Supreme Deity came to be regarded 
as being too holy and pure to come into contact with the world, it was 
believed that he would send his Son or another heavenly being to act as 
his representative or vicegerent, in order to aid men in overcoming the 
evil powers that opposed them. If a man could become united with this 
divine representative of the deity, he could be assured of deliverance 
from these evil forces now and of a blessed immortality in the future. 
This union was effected either by the performance of some ritual, by 
an ecstatic experience, or by the acquiring of a gnosis or divine revela- 
tion which this representative of the deity would bring from heaven. 
In New Testament times the last form of union with the deity was the 
conception that prevailed among many people, especially among the 
Gnostics and mystics. 

These are the thought-forms in which the author of the fourth Gospel 
clothes his conception of the pre-existent Logos and the character and 
functions of the earthly Jesus. When men recognized Jesus as the Son 
of God sent from heaven, and obtained the knowledge of God which he 
brought to earth, they would be enlightened and be saved. 72 The 
author while picturing Jesus in the light of his experience and in the 
light of his idea of salvation, is a man of his day in expressing his con- 
ceptions in the forms that were used, in his circle at least, in explain- 
ing the divine plan of salvation. He here shows close affinity with 
Oriental mysticism and a certain type of theological speculation which 
characterized especially the philosophical and religious ideas of the 
mysteries, Neo-Platonism, and the Gnostics. 73 

In summing up the ideas of the New Testament writers as a whole 
regarding the b'fe of the earthly Jesus, we might observe that they 
agree in ascribing to him the possession of a divine constituent which 

72 John 1:13; 17:3; 20:31 el al. Notice how in I John 5:1-12 a recognition of 
Jesus as the incarnate Son of God is made the necessary condition to salvation. 

73 We would not desire to minimize the possible influence of Pauline thought and 
of the Stoic notion of the Logos upon the conceptions of the author of the fourth Gos- 
pel, but we nevertheless believe that the close relation of our author's ideas to the 
type of thought represented in the mystical cults should also receive due consideration. 



136 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

they consider to have been the cause and explanation of his remarkable 
activity and personality while on earth and which gave him the power 
and right to be called the Messiah or Savior. They further agree in 
thinking of him as continuing in a risen and glorified state, but in the 
form and power of the Spirit still abiding with his followers and work- 
ing in their lives. They differ however (1) in their conception as to 
when this divine element entered into the human Jesus, (2) in the termi- 
nology used to designate this divine increment, (3) in their estimate 
as to the particular gift which this divine element wrought in and through 
Jesus, and (4) in the emphasis which they put upon the significance of 
Jesus' earthly life. 

Some thought of the divine element entering Jesus at baptism, others 
at birth. Some designated this divine constituent as the Holy Spirit, 
others called it the Son of God, or God's image, still others the Logos, 
or pre-existent Word of God. In some circles the chief spiritual gift 
of Jesus was that of prophecy, in others it was the gift of healing and 
of power, in others a life of obedience and virtue, in still others the 
gift of knowledge or revelation. Some regarded the heavenly Christ 
as of greatest importance to their salvation, others placed the emphasis 
equally upon his earthly and heavenly states of existence, while still 
others considered his earthly life as of greatest significance. These 
variations of opinion were due in the main to four causes: (1) the dif- 
ferent interpretations which the Christians put upon their pneumatic 
experiences; (2) the diversity of their opinions as to what they got 
from these experiences; (3) their different notions as to when they 
would obtain salvation; and (4) the variation in their religious train- 
ing and environment, which may be said to a greater or less extent to 
have conditioned also the first three causes. 

A word might be said in conclusion as to the help which the early 
Christians' interpretation of Jesus' spiritual endowment gave them in 
the propagation of their cult. In the first place, they asserted in their 
competition with the John the Baptist cult that their religion was 
superior to John's because the divine element in Jesus' personality 
surpassed that in John's, a point which John himself is said by the 
Christians to have acknowledged. 74 As a result of this difference they 
believed that Jesus could dispense the Spirit, and could endow his 
followers with divine power, a feature that was evidently lacking in 

74 Mark 1:2-7; John 1:15 et ah 



A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 137 

John's cult. 75 The Christians could in this way offer more to the peo- 
ple than could the followers of John. 

Then to those who were looking for a great teacher and longed for 
an authoritative presentation either of God's will or of high ethical 
ideals, the Christians could present the idea of Jesus, the Spirit-endowed 
prophet and teacher. This seems to have been one of the objects 
which the authors of the non-Marcan sources of Matthew and Luke 
had in mind when they wrote their documents. Again, those who de- 
manded the exhibition of power in their hero-god, and were yearning for 
help to get rid of the demons of which they were in constant dread, could 
find satisfaction in the Jesus of Mark, who by the power of the " genius" 
within him was able to conquer all the evil forces of this world 
whether visible or invisible. This would particularly attract the Roman 
type of mind. The conversion of Sergius Paulus 76 which was due to the 
fact that the Spirit in Paul proved stronger than the spirit in the magician 
is an example of how this conception would appeal to the power-loving 
Romans. Then the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke would 
satisfy those who were familiar with the idea of the supernatural birth 
of heroes and gods. Again, the conception of Christ as a heavenly being 
come down from above, assuming human form, teaching men the way 
to God and to heaven, suffering death and again returning to his heavenly 
abode, the picture we have portrayed of Jesus in Paul, Hebrews and John, 
must have powerfully appealed to those who were mystically inclined or 
given to theological speculation. And to those who could find no satis- 
faction in this world but looked to the future for their salvation, the 
picture of Jesus as the heavenly Messiah or as a dying and rising deity 
would be particularly attractive. It is no wonder that with such a 
power of adaptation and with the ability to minister to such a large 
number of classes of people Christianity should have finally triumphed 
over all her competitors. 

75 See especially Acts 19:1-7. 

76 Acts 13:4-12. 



138 A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 



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A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 139 

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